Shinji 1/2
by Subzero
Summary: This is a crossover of Eva/Ranma 1/2. Started as a darkfic but turned into a comedy


Author's notes: This is NOT a darkfic. Just thought I'd warn you so you don't get depressed

and stop reading it. Although I must warn you some of the parts of the story get 

a little gray I'll try to balance the depressing stuff with side splitting humor. (At least I hope so.) This is also not a sequel to Sled Fang although I've borrowed the characters of Kei and Akemi from it. Kei in this story is just another super powered martial artist like Ryoga and Ranma. I've actually got the story line all planed out so comments are welcome but as for suggestions unless they're really good, I probably won't include them. (maybe in a side story or a branch of the story.)

Enough talking you probably haven't read this but…

Technical stuff

===============================

Shinji thinking ^ ^

Ranma thinking / /

Anybody else thinking + +

Shinji ½

Chapter 1: The Cursed Springs of Jusenkyo

The transport plane droned steadily onward towards it's ultimate destination, Japan, more specifically Tokyo 3. Inside was a very precious cargo, a single passenger, a young boy approximately 14 or 15 years old. He was staring off into space, his brown eyes fixated on the nothingness that was his life.

^ Why did I agree to this? It's not like I owe him anything, and after what he did to me he has the nerve to haul me back to Japan for some reason. Oh well I guess I'll find out what it is he wants, tell him off and head back to Russia to continue my studies like he never existed. ^

Shinji laid back in his makeshift hammock he'd made for himself, he looked down at himself and was mildly disgusted at what he saw. Here he was fourteen going on fifteen and he was a wimp. He had virtually no muscle on his arms, the rest of him was just as bad, he could actually count his ribs. The opposite sex had recently become an interest to him even though certain parts had started reacting when he saw something arousing they were still way too small to be effective even if he decided on pursuing some sort of sexual relationship with a girl. He sighed softly. It wouldn't matter anyway, he knew the second he tried to even approach a girl he would chicken out and run away, and if a girl approached him he would collapse into a heap of incoherent babble.

He laughed slightly at the joke that was his life. His father deserting him when he was just a kid, sending him off to live with some teacher in Siberia. His mother dying. All his life people telling him what to do what to say.

Why?

"Because I'm a spineless wimp." He said aloud.

Would he always be like this? A mere slave of everybody, could he ever be his own person.

^ NO!!! I will not let everybody just walk all over me. I'm going to walk right up to dad tell him to 'fuck off' then march right out and back to Siberia. Who'm I kidding I'll probably just cave in and do whatever he wants just like always. ^

From the cockpit.

"Number two's flaming out, damn it we're going to loose number two."

"Shut it down we can't afford to destroy it."

"Shutoff's not working sir I can't shut down."

Suddenly the plane was jolted by a horrendous explosion. 

Shinji jumped out of his hammock and quickly donned a parachute.

The pilot and copilot in the cockpit were yelling into the radio.

"Mayday, mayday, transport plane 1123 we've lost number two engine, wing structure failing, abandoning craft. Lock onto GPS transponders for rescue."

Not wasting any time Shinji got to the rear of the plane and hit the emergency ramp release. The ramp popped open and he and the two pilots jumped out of the rapidly descending aircraft.

After ten seconds Shinji pulled the ripcord and his chute deftly obeyed by deploying a traditional circular parachute. As if by fate or the will of the gods, (god's being me.) a gust of wind caught Shinji's parachute and propelled him towards a vast cluster of pools. In-between the pools were various sizes of decayed bamboo poles. Quickly calculating his current trajectory Shinji realized he was headed towards a particularly large pool. There was no avoiding it he was going to get wet. 

^ Just what I needed, to get my clothes dirty. ^

Splashdown.

20 Years Earlier

A young boy of around seventeen was running as fast as he could. He'd finally made it. Jusenkyo. Tears of joy were streaming down Ranma's cheek as he ran towards the cursed springs. 

/ I'll never be a girl again. Once I'm 100% guy again I can marry Akane and we can be happy. / The mere thought of marrying Akane made Ranma run that much faster. He loved her with all his heart. He'd just finally admitted it to himself. All this time he'd known it but he never actually told her. When he finally did she was so overjoyed she jumped on him and started kissing him so hard and passionately he still had hickeys from it. After his admission most of his troubles went away. Ryoga was furious but he knew that nothing he did would ever persuade Akane to marry him over Ranma. Ukyo was heartbroken but she had Kei so she bounced right back. Shampoo was for lack of a better word, pissed. After destroying everything she could lay her hands on (including Kuno) she broke down. Cologne was also upset, Ranma could tell this. He'd broken Amazon law, and he knew Cologne wouldn't stand for this, but she surprisingly managed to hide most of her rage and remained openly calm.

There it was the spring of drowned man. He ran full speed and jumped.

"Yes I'm never going to be a girl again!" he yelled triumphantly, but in a girl's voice. He looked down and saw that his/her breasts were there. The spring didn't work. A realization dawned on him. That's what the Chinese guy meant when he said 'very bad you fall in spring.' There was no cure, the curse was permanent.

Ranma-chan was about to break down and cry when she suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in her back and chest. She looked down to see a rather large sword sticking out of her left breast. She fell forward into the pool, the blood painted the water red. Before the world went blank he yelled, "Akane I love you." Which under water only came out as a massive burst of bubbles. He inhaled. The water smelled like blood, his blood. That was the last thing he remembered before he passed out and drowned.

Present

A wet, half naked, very buxom, redhead crawled out from under the parachute and out of the pool.

/ Where am I? This looks like Jusenkyo but the poles look older. / As she continued to look around she noticed herself. The clothes she was wearing (or not wearing) looked to be for somebody just slightly smaller and less developed than herself and they had ripped in several places. 

Herself?? Oh no she was still a she. Her memories started flooding back, she remembered jumping into the pool, and… nothing, no the cure didn't work, then something else … a sword sticking through her chest, then the smell of blood then nothing.

Was she dead? No that couldn't be right.

Just then she felt something else. No that wasn't quite right, it was someone else, she could hear them perfectly, but a quick scan of the surroundings revealed nobody. She plugged her ears. The voice, it was coming from her head.

^ Who are you? What's going on here? ^

/ I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything goes martial arts and who are you and what are you doing in my head? /

^ I'm Shinji Ikari, and this is my body. I fell into that stupid pool over there and now I can't move my arm and ^ Shinji remembered that the body he had seen through the eyes had breasts.

^ Why am I female? ^

Ranma thought for a moment.

/ Well near as I can guess that's because of me. /

^ What's because of you??? ^ Shinji was becoming hysterical.

/ Calm down, would you like the long version or the short fanfic version? / 

(author : short fanfic version please please please)

^ Just keep it short.^

(author: Yesssssss)

/ Well welcome to the cursed springs of Jusenkyo, your worst nightmares come to life. Whatever falls into and drowns in the spring, the next thing to fall in and not drown, takes the body of whatever drowned. Make sense? / 

^ No if I'm just supposed to get your body why do I also have your soul? ^

/ No idea, but if I'm right I'm dead. / 

^ I'm sorry. ^

/ Bummer ain't it? /

^ So we're stuck with each other then? ^

/ I guess. I'm really not up on ancient magical stuff. /

^ Uh Ranma? ^

/ Yeah Shinji? /

^ Can I have my body back? ^

/ Well if I'm right all we need to do is find some hot water. /

^ Hot water? ^

/ Yeah the curse is activated whenever you touch cold water, hot water negates the curse. I'm guessing but I think when the curse is active I get control of the body, and when we change back you're the boss. / Ranma started walking over to the shack where he knew the Jusenkyo guide would be, he just hoped that he hadn't been dead too long.

^ But it's my body. ^

/ Trust me. Let me handle the female stuff, I'm used to it by now. / 

^ Huh? ^ 

/ Have you ever had PMS? Didn't think so, I'm used to it by now./

^ Ranma ^

/ Yes? /

^ Are you a guy or a girl? ^

/ I'M A GUY!!! / Ranma shouted in his thoughts making Shinji wince.

^ Alright already but why do you have a girls body? ^

/ I fell into the spring of drowned girl, then when I was trying to cure myself I was killed and drowned in that pool you fell into. When I drowned I was in girl form, that's why. /

^ Oh ^ Shinji didn't get it but he wouldn't say anything.

They arrived at the cabin, Ranma knocked on the door. A young Chinese man answered.

"Hello Mrs's, how I help you?"

"Can I come in?"

"Why you want do that?"

"I need some hot water."

"Oh no you fall into spring of drowned girl. That very bad."

"Not exactly."

Ranma sat down while the young man busied himself with filling the kettle and firing up the halogen stove.

"Now which spring you fall into."

"First what's the date?"

"Why you want know date? It 2014."

"So it's been twenty years then."

"What you say?"

"A young man came here around 20 years ago. He was cursed to turn into a girl. He was killed and drowned in one of those pools out there." Ranma looked at the man. "That was me, I want to know the tragic story."

The man just looked at him. "That very strange only supposed to be body, soul not supposed to go to. Is other person in head with you?"  
"Yeah."

"Very strange indeed. Twenty year ago young man come here, he no get cured, he killed in cold blood. Curse turn him to she then she drown turning pool into 'spring of drowned female super powered martial artist' very tragic story."

Ranma narrowed his eyes. So he was dead, the least he was going to do was get revenge on whoever stuck him in the back. "Who killed me?" He asked rather forcefully.

"Old womans of Amazon village. Cologne."

Cologne then, she dies slowly and painfully. He started forming images in his head of what he'd do to her. These scared Shinji so much that he would have wet himself. That is of course if he was himself at that moment, which he wasn't. The young man continued speaking.

"Womans of Amazon tribe try Cologne for breaking highest Amazon rule, never kill in cold blood. Cologne loose and she slowly die hanging from tree while bird peck at her skin."

/ NO I've been denied everything even my revenge. / Ranma was on the verge of shooting off a Shi shi Hokodan that would have impressed even Ryoga, when the water was ready.

The man slowly poured and the body changed. It became smaller, more scrawny. Ranma felt his grip slowly being pulled from him. He fought a little to keep control but as it was he knew he didn't have a choice.

Shinji felt himself returning to his body. The young man, being a young man, had other plans he wanted to 'test' the curse to make sure there were no adverse affects. In reality he wanted to see that buxom redhead again, one more transformation like that and that shirt would tear itself to shreds.

He readied the water. Shinji somehow sensed the impending danger and as the water splashed, Shinji jumped up over the water and did a spinning kick to the man's face. It really wasn't much since Shinji didn't have the weight or the strength to throw a proper kick, still it got his attention at the speed it was thrown.

"What was that for!" Shinji yelled. (yes you read right yelled.)

"Many apologies sirs. I is very clumsy"

Shinji glared warily at the man as he backed out of the shack. When he was a safe distance away, he let his defenses down a little.

/ Way to go Shinji I didn't know you studied martial arts, what with your body and all. /

^ I don't, I've got no idea how I did that. ^

/ Well you did fall into the spring of 'Female super powered martial artist', and you've got me in here with you, so it naturally stems that you can subconsciously access my martial arts abilities. Go ahead try the katchu tensin amogouriken. /

^ The what? ^

/ Just start throwing punches as fast as you can. / 

Shinji did as he was told but his punches were slow and ineffective, nothing like the speed and grace used in the amogouriken.

/ Maybe you just need a threat or something. /

^ I guess you're right. ^

Over the rise came the sound of a high speed transport helicopter coming to rescue the crash victims.

On board Shinji thought to himself.

^ Here I am again, doing what I'm told, going to see a man who I hate who summons me for no apparent reason and at the drop of a hat I go. I have no father. I hate you Gendo Ikari. ^

/ So what's so bad about your old man? / Ranma piped up.

"Ahhhhhh" Shinji yelled. Luckily for him his girly scream was drowned out by the roar of the engines.

^ Don't do that Ranma. ^

/ Sorry I didn't know you freaked so easily, I'll try to scare the shit out of you more gently next time. / 

Shinji didn't think this was particularly funny. Then he felt a small warm spot on the front of his jeans. He hoped Ranma couldn't feel anything while he wasn't in control. He slowly pulled his shirt out and let the front drape over the spot, masterfully concealing it.

His life had just gotten a hell of a lot more interesting, maybe he wasn't a wimp after all, he felt an unbeatable confidence well up within him. He was invincible, nothing could beat him, he could face anything. He looked out the window as they neared Tokyo 3, he saw a giant walking thing with arms trashing the city. Well maybe not everything.

Chapter 2: A Secret Discovered

The helicopter touched down and was quickly lowered down underground into a massive Geofront command center. His arm was grabbed by an attractive woman, about 25 to 30 years old, black short cut hair. She was wearing a red jacket with half a maple leaf on it, and a few buttons which Shinji recognized as medals. The only outstanding feature of her apparel was a chromium cross that hung from her neck via a black strap of some sort. Beyond her apparel Shinji noticed that she had an outstanding figure. 

^ Oh man, if I was only ten or twenty years older I would love to… ^

/ Dream on bud, now on the other hand if I were still alive and wasn't married, I'd show her exactly how flexible a martial artists body really is. /

^ Ranma I really don't think she's the type of woman to go for lesbian action. ^

/ HEY I'M A GUY REMEMBER!!! /

Shinji was doing his best not to laugh, if he did they'd probably commit him to a mental institution.

/ Exactly where you belong, pervert. / Ranma said then stalked off to sulk in the recesses of Shinji's brain. It wasn't an easy task and he eventually gave up.

Misato and Shinji arrived at what seemed to be a gigantic hangar of some sort. There was a catwalk that stretched across a giant pool of yellowish liquid. In the middle of the pool stood what appeared to be a huge purple and lime green robot.

^ The paint job has something to be desired, I wonder if this is why I'm here? ^

/ Hey Shinji who's the really serious looking guy up there with the stupid orange glasses? /

^ That Ranma is the old man. ^

"Shinji I trust that little mishap with the transport didn't affect you too much?"

"Why am I here father? Why now?"

"We need you to pilot the Evangelion and defeat the Angels."

"What are you talking about?"

Misato cut in.

"Shinji, that," pointing at the robot "is Evangelion unit one or Eva unit one for short, and the Angels, that giant thing with arms trashing downtown you couldn't have missed it, are an alien species that seem hell bent on destroying the human race. You're here to defeat them, and to do it we need you to pilot unit one."

Shinji turned to look at his father. "Why me? Why now?"

Gendo looked down at his son standing there on the catwalk. "Because you're the only one who can. Will you do it?"

Shinji started thinking. Gendo took his silence as a 'no'. "Very well then bring out Rei."

"No you can't it'll kill her." Misato shouted.

"She's not dead yet." Gendo replied in a monotone voice.

Several technicians and doctors wheeled out a stretcher and an IV unit onto the catwalk. On the stretcher lay a girl not much older than Shinji. It was obvious that she had been through hell. Her head was heavily bandaged, and she had casts on both her arms and one of her legs. She was in a form fitting body suit but both Shinji and Ranma could see the bandages underneath.

/ Shinji you can't. If she's the only other one who can pilot that thing, you can't let her do it. /

^ But I'm scared. I've never done anything like this before. I don't think I can do it. ^

Before Ranma could respond the hangar was shaken by a massive explosion above. Several metal plates fell from above. 

Shinji ran faster than he'd ever ran before, he was almost a blur. He gently grabbed Rei off the stretcher and jumped out of the way milliseconds before a panel crashed down onto the spot Rei had just been totally destroying the stretcher. 

He gently laid Rei down on the catwalk and turned to glare at his father. Through clenched teeth, he spat out, "I'll do it." 

To this he turned to Misato, nodded then turned and walked off to his office.

Misato tossed Shinji two neural interface receptors, then started to run to the command center.

"Put those on your head and get into the plug, hurry we don't have much time left."

Shinji did as he was told. He then did something really unusual. Instead of using the stairs he jumped onto Eva 01. It was a jump worthy of Ranma for he made it from the catwalk to the entry plug in that one jump and he was even seated properly.

/ How the hell did you do that? /

^ Do what? ^

/ Shinji you just jumped 25 to 30 feet straight up! /

It suddenly hit him.

^ I… I have no idea, I just did it. It was like instinct. ^

/ Well we know that you seem to be able to do some of my moves, but just not when you want to do them. Listen we are about to fight a 25 story tall monster we had better find out how you are able to do my martial arts or else there will be a good chance we'll be killed. /

The discussion continued inside the entry plug. Misato had reached the control room. There she found everybody standing there with their mouths open in utter shock.

"Hey what's everybody doing just standing around we've got a fight on our hands."

She turned to Ritsuko. "Ritsuko what happened?"

"H… h… he j… jumped." 

"Who?"

"Shinji"

"No just what we need our one and only pilot commits suicide just when he's needed most. Damn I guess we need Rei."

"Misato, he… he jumped from the catwalk to the entry plug in ONE jump."

"That's impossible but we'll investigate later right now prepare to launch."

Everybody was still in shock.

"NOW!" That worked.

Through the entry plug speaker Shinji heard Misato's voice.

"Now Shinji we're going to have to fill the entry plug with LCL, don't be afraid."

The entry plug started filling with some sort of orangish liquid. Shinji was squirming.

"Uh Misato there's something I need to tell you, I can't touch cold water."

"What's that about? Don't worry LCL is a highly oxygenated fluid, it's not water, and it's not cold." Though reassuring him, she stuck the cold water thing in her mind. + Could be useful as a practical joke later. +

The LCL was rising higher and higher, even though he found he could touch it without activating the curse the faint smell of blood was sickening. He didn't know why but he believed that Ranma drowning in a pool of his own blood had something to do with it.

It was over his head he held his breath for as long as he could but finally he had to exhale. What he inhaled was slightly more viscous than air, but it was breathable.

"How are you feeling Shinji?" came Misato's voice over the loudspeaker.

"I feel a little sick, I think I may throw up."

"Well if you puke you're cleaning it up, got it."

"Yeah I got it."

Inside the control room Ritsuko was analyzing the readouts from Shinji's neural interface sensors. The results were to say the least confusing. There were two distinct brainwave patterns. This was scientifically impossible.

"Maya begin interface, let's get him going." Shouted Misato across the room to Maya.

"Approaching break even point, passing , Captain he's stabilized at 56% synchronization."

Under her breath Misato mumbled to herself, "way to go kid now go get em."

"Launch Eva 01"

Shinji felt the Eva and himself slowly merge, the Eva's arms were now his arms, the Eva's legs were now his legs, when he closed his eyes he could still see, but they were not his eyes. The entire experience was slightly disorienting, kind of like the first time he'd stepped into a full virtual reality machine. Then there was a sudden jolt as the Eva rocketed skyward.

On the ground everything was different. He looked around and saw the Angel 5 blocks dead ahead. Through the loudspeaker.

"Ok Shinji no pressure just try taking a few steps."

Eva lurched forward and fell flat on it's face. Inside the entry plug.

"Ow that's going to leave a mark."

From the speaker.

"Shinji get up it's coming right at you, GET UP." Misato's voice seemed urgent.

Eva was struggling like a baby who had just fallen down and couldn't get up.

For a 25 story tall monster the Angel moved quite quickly, covering the distance between itself and the fallen Eva in a matter of a few seconds.

/ Uh Shinji if you're holding out on me time to cut it out and get serious, it's coming over here and it looks like Happosai after we threw out his entire collection of panties and bras. /

^ What do you think I'm trying to do. Stupid thing how do you move. ^

Shinji finally figured out how to move but it was too little too late. The Angel had grabbed the Eva by it's arm, then it twisted it till it snapped in half. Shinji screamed in agonizing pain. Misato came through, "Shinji that's not your arm it's the Eva's arm." It didn't matter who's arm it was it still hurt like hell.

The Angel grabbed hold of the Eva's head and started pounding on it with some sort of energy lance. Shinji passed out.

"Maya cut neural connections or we're going to loose the pilot."

"No good control circuits are shot, we've got no way of getting in touch with the Eva."

This wasn't quite true Ritsuko was still getting readings. She saw the dominant brainwave become the passive brainwave and vice versa. It still made no sense.

In the entry plug, Ranma found himself in control of Shinji's male body. He also couldn't hear Shinji's thoughts so he concluded (and rightly so) that Shinji had passed out. Then it hit him, the reason why Shinji had passed out. Two stabbing pains, one from his arm the other from his head. / Guess I can't blame him for passing out. Wonder if my healing ability would work on the Eva? One way to find out. /

From the control room.

"The Eva's regenerating." Maya yelled to Misato.

"What?"

Indeed it was regenerating. Almost instantly the arm snapped back into place and the damaged eye healed. Ranma stood up and flexed. The Eva flexed with him. Using what he'd learned from Shinji's failed attempt at walking he took a step. It worked. / Awright now to get down to some serious business. / He cracked his knuckles. He was to be the sole savior of the world. It was really quite thrilling. He let out a roar and the Eva responded likewise.

"It's gone berserk again." Maya called out.

"Ritsuko I thought you fixed that." Misato said to her friend who was totally engulfed in the readings she was getting.

"What do you expect from an untested highly evolved cybernetic weapon." Responded Ritsuko not looking up from her readings.

"So that means what."

"No warranty."

Outside there was a battle raging on. After Ranma had flipped the Angel the bird, it had 'run' up and kicked the Eva in the nuts. (if Eva's have nuts) It hurt like hell, and Ranma wanted revenge, for everything. He was doing a series of devastating roundhouse and jump kicks, none of which seemed to be penetrating the Angel's weird kind of force field. However Ranma noticed that each blow seemed to weaken it. Through some amazingly quick and insightful thinking Ranma realized that if he could land thousands of punches he should be able to weaken the field and collapse it, then make that ugly thing even uglier, i.e. bloody pulp.

"Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken!" he yelled as Eva's arms started flying out faster than the speed of sound, sending out mach cones, which also slammed into the AT field.

Ritsuko was pissing herself. Everything was wrong, first Shinji jumping into the entry plug, then the dual signals, now whatever was in control of Shinji and hence the Eva was making it's arms move beyond mach 1 this was impossible.

Misato looked over at her friends stunned reaction, then she looked down.

"Ritsuko look what you did on the floor. Baaaaaddd Ritsuko, baaaaadddd scientist."

The Angel was weakening rapidly and the AT field finally collapsed. Ranma however didn't stop he saw the red core and decided to trash that first. He did a front kick aimed at the top of the Angel it toppled onto it's back. Ranma jumped on and started doing the Amogouriken technique downward directly on the core. It cracked and the Angel stopped moving.

The recovery room was bone white and barren. Kind of like Saskatchewan in the winter. Ranma was awake but pretended to be unconscious in fear that he would be discovered, not knowing he already had been. Ritsuko was standing outside the door talking to someone. Three people entered the room and shut the door and the blinds, one of them unhooked the security camera.

Cold water splashed on the bed, one very impressive transformation later a damp redhead jumped out of the bed.

"What'd you do that for?" she screamed.

Her eyes crossed as a 45 special, that would have made Dirty Harry cream his jeans, was pointed directly at his/her nose almost touching it.

Misato narrowed her eyes. "Now who are you?"

"I'm Shinji."

"Wrong answer," As the audible click of the hammer being pulled back and locked into place.

"Now let's try this again, who are you?"

Gendo spoke. "The captain is a little trigger happy. Now whoever you are I've only seen two people in my life who were able to pull off the Katsu Tenshin Amogouriken," he narrowed his eyes "and both of them my dear, are dead. So I ask who are you?"

Ranma lowered her eyes. "I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Sorry about this."

"You're lying, Ranma's dead, and besides Ranma was a guy." Gendo said coldly. "Misato shoot her."

"But sir it was your son?" Misato's moment of confusion was all Ranma needed.

/ He doesn't believe I'm Ranma, I'll show him. /

"Hiru Shoten Ha!" he yelled 

This shook Misato out of her state of confusion, just in time to see a miniature whirlwind spinning towards her current position. It picked her up and spun her across the room, dropping the gun. Ritsuko was also caught up slightly and was pushed against the door, Gendo was just ruffled a little before the whirlwind spun down.

He showed his shock. His left eyebrow twitched slightly.

"You can't be alive."

"Who says I am, now sit and I'll try to explain."

After two hours of curses, martial arts explanations, and various other things, Ritsuko got up.

"I can't possibly believe it but here it is right in front of me. I can't take much more of this I'm going to do my work now." With this she huffed off.

Gendo left for his office after reassuring Ranma that the entire transformation thing would be kept top secret except for Nerv officials. It was just Misato and Ranma in the room. Misato had gotten used to everything by now. (well almost everything the changing into a girl thing was still really weird)

Ranma got up went to the bathroom and came out as Shinji again.

"Why'd you do that?" Asked Misato.

"Well I figure that Shinji is going to be waking up soon and he would probably want to be in control of the body."

"Oh."

Almost on cue Shinji came to.

^ Oh man, my head hurts, hey Ranma what'd I miss. ^

"Hey Shinji is that you?" asked Misato curiously "Or is that still you Ranma?"

^ She knows!!! Ranma how does she know. ^

/ I told her. They found out because that stupid machine told them. Stupid machine. Don't worry it's all going to be kept top secret. /

^ She tried to shoot you. ^

"Helllooooooo, anybody home?" Misato waved her hand in front of Shinji's eyes. 

"Hm what?"

"What were you doing?"

"I was talking to Ranma."

+ Two people in one body, that's got to be strange. +

"Well I guess we should get going."

"Going? Going where?"

"Home of course silly, you're staying with me."

"Goody"

Ritsuko was walking down the hall to her office. She had tons of work to do. Two souls in one body, and one of them was that of a dead man. This was just too weird. 

She rounded the corner and opened her office door. On her desk was a box of diapers. A practical joke spawned by her earlier accident, probably the brainchild of the guys. Heads would roll, and she wasn't thinking about the kind that sat on their shoulders either.

The ride home was pretty much uneventful. Shinji was really tired for some reason, Ranma didn't tell him he'd pulled off a chi attack, and Shinji was too tired to press the issue.

Misato opened the door to the apartment.

"Well Shinji, Ranma welcome home."

The apartment was to put it mildly a disaster, there were instant Raman noodle cases everywhere, and the dishes in the sink were piling up.

/ She can't cook. /

^ How can you tell? ^

/ Look around it's elementary all this instant food. /

"Well get settled in supper will be in about five minutes." She moved to the cupboard and pulled out three packages of noodles and some stuff. She went to the sink and pulled out a pot, sniffed it, rinsed it gently under the water then filled it half full.

^ I don't think I'd survive that stuff, could take this one please. ^

Ranma laughed / Sure, sure I've survived worse believe me. You know what to do. / 

Shinji wandered over to the sink.

"Misato, I'm really not hungry right now but Ranma says he's starved." With that he dumped the water on himself. The transformation tore his clothes a bit, as the bigger Ranma came forth.

/ We've got to get you some new clothes, preferably ones with some give to them, this shirt's tight. /

He exhaled and the shirt developed two big tears under the arms and two buttons popped off. 

/ Much better. / 

One of the buttons hit Misato in the back of the head and she turned to see the cause.

Her eye twitched heavily. There was Ranma severely busting out of Shinji's now way too small shirt.

"Ranma don't you have ANY female modesty?"

"Not a shred, I'm a guy remember." He went to the refrigerator and opened it.

Beer. (an engineers best friend) Row upon row of beer.

"Lemme guess, hmmm you would like a beer, is that right?"

"You got it, how'd you know."

"Instinct." Ranma said as he procured two beers from the fridge. 

He handed one to Misato and kept the other for himself. She saw him crack his and pound back the entire can.

"What are you doing!!" yelled Misato "You're way to young to drink."

Ranma just crumpled the can into a small ball, crossed his arms and looked at Misato.

"Look, how old are you?"

"Twenty six, why?"

"I'm thirty seven so I can damn well drink beer if I want."

"But…" She for some reason she couldn't come up with a response to this, it had never occurred to her that this girl was older than she was. So she did the only thing she could, she slammed her beer.

"Hooo Yaw. That's one to one Ranma."

"One to what?"

"Get us another beer." She narrowed her eyes. "By slamming that beer you challenged me to a drinking contest, and I never back down from a challenge."

Walking to the fridge Ranma opened it and tossed her another beer and got one for himself.

"Well awl right, you're on."

^ You've never drank before in your life have you. ^

/ Not a once, but don't worry I never loose. / 

Shinji didn't want to say this but challenging somebody with a stack of filled out frequent drinker cards at the local liquor shop, probably wasn't a good idea.

An hour later, the Raman hadn't even been touched. Ranma was sloshed, Misato was even showing quite a bit.

"Shyou know yoush verrrrry boootiful Mishato." Ranma slurred.

^ Ranma you're drunk stop now before you do something. ^

"Aw shaddap Shinji yoush spoiln my fun."

He turned on Misato he used his martial artist balance which even when he was drunk didn't fail him. He lunged at Misato knocking her out of the chair and onto the floor.

He pressed his lips to hers in an unbreakable liplock kiss with tongue. Misato in her drunken haze was shocked that she was being kissed by a girl, Shinji was shocked that Ranma was kissing Misato, and Ranma was shocked that he wasn't using his hands to get a feel.

Before he could act the body failed and he passed out.

Misato lay on the floor.

+ I was just kissed by a girl, no wait I was kissed by a boy, no wait I was kissed by an old man, no I was kissed by an old dead man in a young girls body. Yeah that's right. He was a good kisser. + That was it she too passed out.

Shinji lay there on the floor, unable to move. When he took over Ranma's body he got the alcohol rush too. He was too drunk to do anything. A penguin waddled out to where Shinji/Ranma and Misato lay on the floor.

It stopped in front of Shinji, 'warked' at him then raised it's leg.

Chapter 3: Budwieser and Books

The next day the sun shone brightly through the window. Normally this would cheer anybody up and make them happy about facing a new day. Everybody except those who had over indulged in the fire water the night before and now had a four alarm hangover. Shinji Ikari was one of these people. The sun pierced his eyelids like an arrow, traveled up his optic nerve and started pounding on his brain, like a punk rocker at a heavy metal thrash concert.

He moaned and rolled over. Right onto a sleeping Pen Pen who had found the sleeping kid to be an excellent source of heat. The penguin warked and flapped it's wings and kicked with it's feet. Shinji got off and rose to all fours. He carefully shook his head, he smelled something, it was him. He smelled like a penguins litterbox.

/ Morning how do you feel? /

^ How am I supposed to feel jerk. You get drunk then I get the pain. I feel like Happosai just used me for a punching bag. ^ (note remember Shinji and Ranma are of one brain so their memories and thoughts are shared just their conciousnesses are separate.)

/ Really sorry about that but you know I never back down from a challenge. So did I win? / 

^ No, you kissed her then passed out. ^

Alarm bells started going off in Ranma's mind he couldn't remember kissing her or anything past beer 12.

/ Really? /

^ Yeah really. ^

/ Shinji /

^ Yeah ^

/ I think you'd better go take a shower, it'll help with your hangover plus I think the penguin pissed on you last night. / 

Shinji mentally nodded his approval then slowly crawled to the shower room. He was crawling so he didn't notice the 'Do not enter occupied' sign on the door.

A wet naked Misato watched as the door opened and Shinji crawled in on all fours then stripped on the floor and continued to crawl into the shower.

She watched as he tried to reach the knobs to turn the water on. She reached in and cranked the cold water tap all of the way.

"Yahhhhhhhhhhhhh" Screamed Ranma as the curse took effect and she bolted upright.

"That was for last night you pervert." Misato said as she finished drying herself off and walked out of the room.

Shinji finished his shower but found that Misato had taken the only towel.

^ Damn. Ranma you owe me one from last night. You're walking out there. ^

He stepped back into the shower and turned the cold water tap just slightly.

A wet naked Ranma walked out of the shower room right passed a staring Misato and into his and Shinji's room.

+ I had no idea she was so well built. + She looked down at herself then at the mental picture of Ranma walking. + Damn. +

Ranma walked out of the room dressed in Shinji's biggest clothes, which were still quite tight up top and she had foregone doing up most of the buttons on the shirt rather than popping them off.

After changing back, Shinji finished dressing and sat down at the table, his stomach still turned slightly at the thought of eating but he forced himself to anyway.

"So Shinji are you ready for your first day of school?"

"School? I don't understand."

"Well as a Nerv officer you have to finish school, those are your orders."

"When did I become a Nerv officer? I don't remember signing on."

"The moment you stepped into unit 1 you became a Nerv officer."

"If I'm an officer where's my pass card or some other type of identification?"

Misato reached under the table and produced a small package. She opened it and produced a card with Shinji's picture on it and handed it to him.

"This is your identification card it will allow you to get into Central Dogma so you can get to you Eva if we need you."

She rummaged around some more and produced a cellular phone and handed it to him.

"This will allow us to get ahold of you if we need to." She produced a small thin red plastic package. 

"Here are you orders incase you can't reach headquarters and don't know what to do."

She pulled out a nifty hat with the Nerv symbol on it.

"And here's your nifty hat."

^ This is lame I save all humanity and all I get is this stupid hat. ^

/ Well Shinji it is a job in the military so I would suspect that they would have to pay you or something. Ask her. /

"So Misato," he narrowed his eyes at her "are there any other fringe benefits like say me getting paid?"

"Eheheh I guess so, how does 25 000 yen per mission sound plus 500 an hour when your working on the base."

"Sounds good, but I'm going to need some more stuff from you."

It was now Misato's turn to narrow her eyes. "Like what?"

"Well I was thinking that if I'm halfway across the city and you need me I'm not going to just hop on a bus or call a taxi you know. I need a sweet ride."

"Huh?"

"A vehicle of some sorts, I was thinking motorcycle, say 2013 Harley Davidson, lowrider, shovelhead, handle bars up to here." Indicating level of handlebars.

Misato's eye twitched "I I'll have to take that up with commander Ikari."

"Thanks Misato." Shinji said as he got up and left the table. "I guess I'll be going to school now."

He grabbed his book bag and ran out the door.

Misato looked at her watch and screamed as she ran out the door. She was going to be late for work.

Shinji was running along the ground when all of a sudden.

ATTACK OF THE EVIL OLD SIDEWALK WASHER WOMAN

/ Well I guess we need to find some hot water, there should be some at the school. /

^ Great just great my first day at school and I'm going to be late. ^

/ Hey you've got it easy, if I move too much this shirt's going to explode and won't that just suck. I may not have any female modesty but being thrown into jail for indecent exposure would just make my day, last time some sexually depraved woman wanted me to be her bitch. I had to convince her otherwise./

Shinji stifled a laugh, as they reached the gates of New Furinken High School.

Instead of leaping over the fence and risking an indecent exposure lawsuit he decided to go in through the front gate.

He looked around, it was an almost perfect replica of the original Furinken except the damage was slightly greater.

He was looking around when he spotted a bokken wielding boy approximately his (biological) age approaching.

"Halt fair pigtailed mistress, I Kaechi Kuno, do hereby challenge you. If I defeat thee, thou shalt date with me,"

/ Who let Kuno breed? Better yet who would sleep with Kuno? /

" For 1000 yen I shall spare thee my wrath and you shall date with me."

/ Nabiki? /

Kuno charged.

/ I've got no time for this. /

Ranma not wanting to start popping buttons on Shinji's shirt put her hands together. A glowing sphere of chi started to form.

"Mouko Takabisha" 

One charred Kuno to go. Ranma continued walking to the school not noticing a pigtailed girl fuming on the sidelines. She got up and followed.

Ranma had found a back room with a sink and hot running water. Ranko opened the door a crack so she could see what was happening. She saw the girl change into a wimpy looking boy. She closed the door and ran around the corner so she wouldn't be caught.

Shinji walked out and off to class.

+ The Mouko Takabisha is my move how dare he. Well he is cursed, so life can't be easy on him. Hmm now that I think about it put on a bit of muscle and he'd be pretty good looking. + She put this thought out of her head as she too rushed off to class.

"Good morning class we have a new student here at NFH his name is Shinji Ikari, lets all give him a good welcome, but this still does not excuse the fact that he was late. Now go stand in the hall."

^ How could you do this day after day? ^

/ Oh come on Shinji it's only one bucket. It's not that bad. /

^ But it's heavy! ^

/ But it's only half full! Shinji are you really that weak? /

^ And what if I am! ^

/ Woah didn't mean to hit a sore spot. If you want I could train you. Get you all buff for the ladies. I think that one in the corner was looking at you. /

^ You really mean it? You'll help me. ^

/ Sure it's not like I've got anything better to do, like hit on Misato. /

Shinji laughed out loud, which earned him another five minutes in the hall.

When he got back he found two messages on his computer the first was a question from a guy named Kensuke asking him if he was the new Eva pilot. Shinji decided to respond to this one as 'No comment' since he knew that the truth would get him into trouble. He looked back and noticed the perplexed look on Kensuke's face.

Looking at the second e-mail 

' Meet me behind the gym after school, be prepared to fight, this is a challenge. Ranko'

^ She wants to fight me? Why? ^

/ I have no idea but you can't refuse. See if you can trace the seat number so we can see what she looks like. /

^ No luck it was triple encrypted and a binary trace path scrambler was enabled, it's untraceable. ^

/ Can you at least hack into the system to find out anything about her? Let's face it you're going to need all the advantages you can get. /

^ I am NOT going to hack into anything. ^

/ Alright but if she mops the floor with you don't come crying to me. /

^ If she 'mops the floor with me' you'll be crying too, the great Ranma Saotome beaten by a 14 year old girl. ^

/ But it won't be me. It'll be you. /

^ I am you remember we are of one body, so if I'm going down you are too. ^

/ That's not fair. /

^ All we can hope for is that I'm able to get control of your abilities in time to prevent our collective selves from getting killed. ^

/ And that she doesn't find out about the curse. /

^ Damn I hope she doesn't know about that AND that she never finds out, I'm not good at water dodging, ^ looking down at his shirt ^ besides I don't think my shirt'd be able to take another transformation. ^

/ Yeah that's just what we'd need I don't think that these Jr. Highers would be able to withstand the full force of me tearing this shirt to shreds. / An image of the entire male population keeling over with bleeding noses ran through Shinji's brain.

The thought of this led Shinji to laugh. Problem was he laughed out loud. After a few minutes of trying to BS his way out of a detention he managed to convince the teacher that it was just a funny joke that he just got. It seemed to work.

The rest of the school day went pretty much as usual, some old guy droning on about the Second Impact and how it changed society. Shinji fell asleep leaving Ranma to face the horrors of the endless boring class.

By the time school was over Ranma was pretty tired if not more enlightened. (He died 4 years before second impact, so he's got a lot of history to catch up on.)

/ Man things've changed a lot since I was alive. I had no idea the Spice Girls teamed up with Barney to take control of the Eastern United States after impact. /  
^ Yeah most of the eastern US was under water so there wasn't much resistance. Well here we are the back of the gym. ^

/ And there she is. Strange she looks kinda like me except much less developed and her hair's blue. I wonder what her family name is. Shinji see if you can get her name. /

^ What are you going to hit on her too? ^ Shinji flashed the scene of Ranma kissing Misato. Ranma cringed.

/ No I'd just like to know who we're fighting. So I really did kiss Misato then. /

^ Yup, wait she's saying something. ^

"Shinji you jerk you stole my move, and for that you must pay. Dieeeee" She rushed at him and aimed a devastating jump kick to his jaw.

Shinji spun around and landed a quick reverse kick to the back of her head as she passed him. She was phased but not daunted. She launched a barrage of other attacks, various kicks and spinning punches none of which connected. She was getting frustrated.

"Alright that's it, Mouko Takabisha!" The energy burst washed over his body but had no effect. Ranma had told him in time the secret, 'let go of all of your emotions and the Takabisha can't hurt you.' It had worked.

Ranko stood there confused. Nothing should be standing after that. She'd put all of her confidence into that one blast, and Shinji just stood there, not a scratch on him.

"Wha, Wh, How'd you do that?"

"That's it I've had enough, now will you tell me your name and WHY you are trying to kick the shit out of me please."

Dazed but still mostly in control of her thoughts, she decided to take a break from the mayhem to think of a new plan.

"Alright. My name is Ranko, Ranko Saotome of the Saotome school of martial arts, and the Mouko Takabisha is my move and you stole it."

Suddenly a wave of depression and confusion overtook Shinji. The source of which was Ranma. 

/ There's no way she could be a Saotome, I was the last male heir and I died. /

Seeing that Shinji seemed stunned, Ranko saw her opportunity and took it. She charged with the plan on leveling him with one finishing blow. She slowed down suddenly around ten feet from target when she noticed that he was glowing green and blue.

She suddenly remembered the move, it was her fathers but he hadn't been depressed enough to do it in years. Her eyes widened and she tried to avoid being hit by the blast but she couldn't move fast enough.

"Shi Shi Hokoudan!" Shinji yelled as a blue green chi blast shot forth from his outstreched hands.

Ranko lay on the ground slightly singed and unconscious.

/ She can't be a Saotome, she just can't be. /

^ Why not? Maybe your dad got back together with your mom and had another kid, in which case she would be your sister. ^

/ Not likely mom would have rather killed pop rather than sleep with him, but if her name is Saotome that just has to be it. Great we just beat up my sister. /

Suddenly the air raid sirens went off signaling an Angel attack. Shinji hung his head.

^ I really don't want to do that again. ^

/ Don't worry you know how to walk now, and besides / indicating Ranko / you seem to be able to fight pretty good as it is if you can beat up so thoroughly on my poor defenseless little sister. /

^ Ranma if you are any example NO Saotome is poor or defenseless. ^

Shinji started roof hopping since it was the fastest way to get to Nerv.

From the shadows Kaechi was watching plotting revenge on the evil Shinji Ikari for hurting his precious Ranko, and also how to win the favor of that dashing older girl that beat him this morning. + Ah fair beauty how sweet is thine name. Ha ha they shall both be mine. For I am the Great Thunder of New Furinken High. +

And the thunder rolls.

Chapter 4: Mr. Angel's Neighborhood

After some serious roof hopping Shinji managed to arrive at Nerv headquarters. The crews were already finished outfitting Eva 01 for combat and were standing by waiting for the order to begin the launch sequence. Shinji ran into the nearby change area and donned his plug suit and threw the neural interface units onto his head and jumped into the entry plug.

Misato's voice came over the intercom. "Hey Shinji you ready?"

"Not really but hey didn't stop me last time."

/ Technically it did stop you, I had to take over and save our ass. /

^ Shut up Ranma minor technical oversight ok. ^

From the control room.

"Launch Eva 01"

Inside the entry plug Shinji put a CD into the custom installed CD player.

% Exit Light, Enter Night, Take my hand. We're off to never never land he he…%

Inside the control room Misato's eye was twitching.

"Ok who's idea was it to put a kick ass stereo into an Eva?"

Scanning the room she saw nobody blink.

+ I thought it was a good idea. + thought Gendo but of course he wasn't going to say anything. + At least the boy's got good taste in music. +

The purple and green Eva rocketed to the surface, again it's head snapped up upon reaching ground level. When the restraining bolts were released the Eva ran out of it's cage and to the nearest weapons cache where it grabbed a gun. Shinji crouched behind a building waiting to get a clear shot at the incoming Angel. Then he saw it. It was like a giant slug oozing along the ground, except that it was hot pink with two eyes on the top and two translucent whip like tentacles. Shinji lunged out from behind the building and pumped a few hundred rounds at the Angel's general direction.

"Shinji get out of there you can't see the target, retreat and obtain a visual, pattern blue remains!" Misato was yelling but Shinji didn't hear her. He was too busy avoiding the tentacles that were trying to tear him apart. He was using his own AT field to shield his arms and using them to block the whips, but it still stung when he blocked. 

^ Damn it the stupid gun didn't work. ^

/ Guess you're going to have to take it down the old fashioned way. /

^ Kick it's ass. ^

/ Kick it's ass. /

^ Well then… ^ "Let's rock and roll!!" Increase volume.

% Everybody was Kung fu fighting, those cat's were fast as lightning…%

Shinji lunged out but the Angel wouldn't go on the defensive, it kept attacking him, and it was all Shinji could do to keep himself from being dashed to pieces.

Then one solid hit later the Eva was embedded in a hillside with an advancing Angel.

Shinji looked to his right side and saw a girl and a boy on the hill next to his hand. He noticed the girl was Ranko, and the boy was about a year older than her. The strange thing was that he had fangs and was wearing a red bandanna with black spots.

"Major I can't just leave them there they'll be killed."

Misato sighed. There was no other way she had to let them into the entry plug.

"Make it snappy that Angel'll be on you in less than two minutes."

Shinji hit the emergency hatch release and the entry plug slid out.

"Get in." He called over to them. 

Ranko rushed over dragging the boy with her. The boy seemed hesitant about getting into the entry plug.

"Get in stupid, it's not cold water, see, he didn't change into a girl." To this the boy relaxed a bit but was still nervous about getting into the plug. 

Shinji shut the hatch and got the Eva moving just in time. The Angel shot one of it's tentacles right were Eva's head was. A tenth of a second later and Shinji would have had one world class headache. As it was the tentacle just missed and he was able to land a fairly forceful side kick to the Angel's core. A small crack developed, but was healed a second later. 

^ It's no good I can't beat it, it's too fast none of my attacks are fast enough to penetrate it's defenses. ^

/ Then you've just got to use something faster. /

^ But Ranma I'm not fast enough to do the amogouriken. ^

/ You may not be yet but the Eva is. Try Shinji I believe in you. /

Klaxons brought Shinji back to reality from his little chat with Ranma. The Angel had cut Eva's main power cable. 

"What are you doing stupid, taking a nap, get in there and fight." 

"Shut up and let me drive Ranko."

^ Alright I've got 5 minutes to beat this thing. One minute if I use the amogouriken, got to make this count. ^

"Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken!" yelled Shinji as he made Eva's arms move at the speeds that made the Amogouriken technique famous for the users ability to pluck chestnuts out of a fire without being burned.

All two thousand five hundred fifty seven punches hit their mark. The Angel's core went silent, and both Eva and Angel stood there motionless, as if in a dance where time just stopped.

Misato, Ritsuko, and Gendo were standing over Shinji who was sitting in a chair in Gendo's office.

"What were you thinking? When that timer started I told you to get out of there, why did you stay?" asked Misato. + And it had better not have anything to do with a certain deceased martial artist, or I'm going to get violent. +

"I had to beat the Angel, that's my job isn't it?" he looked up at Gendo and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly "Victory and survival of the human race," he looked at the floor "no matter what the cost." 

"But you could have been killed."

/ It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life. /

"It is a martial artists duty to protect the weak and the helpless even if it costs him his life."

^ Hey quit putting words in my mouth. ^

/ You seemed to need as much help as you could get. /

Gendo spoke up. "You've been spending way too much time with Ranma haven't you?"

"It's not like I have any choice in the matter, I'm sure Ranma doesn't like it much."

/ Actually I love it. Beats being dead any day. What are you saying? Am I a bad roommate? / 

Gendo put his hands together infront of his face, he steepled his pointer fingers.

"Shinji, Ritsuko you're dismissed." He said in his monotone voice. "Misato I want you to stay."

After they had left. "Yes sir what would you like."

"In your opinion have you noticed any changes in my son ever since he met Ranma?"

"As a matter of fact sir yes I have. He's only been here two days but he seems to have grown up quite a bit, and his courage and confidence have really shot up. Ranma seems to have had a definite effect on him, but of course I didn't know him until two days ago so my opinion is probably flawed."

"It is not, it seems my son has grown himself quite a pair these past couple of days."

"Pair of what sir?"

"Balls captain, my son is a wimp, or at least he was a wimp until he took a dive in those Jusenkyo springs. It seems meeting the undefeated Ranma Saotome has done him a world of good." 

"If you don't mind me asking sir, just how exactly do you know Ranma?"  
"It was a long time ago. I used to go to Furinken High school in the Nerima district of Tokyo. There was this girl there by the name of Akane Tendo. She was beautiful, every guy in the school wanted to date with her, but it was decreed by this guy named Kuno that you could only date with her if you beat her in fair and square combat."  
"Sounds pretty corny if you think about it."  
"Yeah I know, I even tried my hand at it once, got knocked on my ass so fast I barely knew what happened. Anyway one day this guy named Ranma shows up, and it turns out he was engaged to Akane through his parents meddling. It took a while but eventually everyone gave up on Akane because once they saw how much Ranma cared for her we all knew we didn't stand a chance."  
"So he loved her did he?"  
"Very much, but they fought a lot. In fact as I remember it she was one of the few people who could actually defeat him, you see she had this devastating hammer attack, I still can't figure it out. Anyway it turns out that his father engaged him to several other women, I think it was two or three others besides Akane, then there was that crazy woman Kodachi, she was after him too."

"Sounds like a harem." 

"Not really, for some reason Ranma was considered a stud, and therefor all the women were naturally attracted to him. Then the mayhem started after one of his fiancée's great grandparents started teaching him and a few others some really dangerous techniques, like the Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken, and the Hiru Shoten Ha. There were guys always trying to kill him, like his best friend, I think his name was Ryoga Hibiki. Yes that's right. I think that was his son in the entry plug today. That's more or less it, it ends with the great grandmother that taught him those techniques killing him because he wouldn't marry her granddaughter according to some stupid law in their village. And that brings us to today."

"I think I understand things a bit clearer now. Is that all you wanted sir?"  
"No. I would like you to get ahold of Harley Davidson Japan and get them to custom build Shinji his bike, then get over to the motor vehicle center and requisition him a Nerv license. Oh and on the bike make sure there's lots of chrome." He narrowed his eyes and placed them closer to his steepled fingers. "Lots of shiny chrome and some cool sunglasses and a leather jacket."

Misato twitched a bit but saluted. "Yes sir."

"And Misato you will not repeat any of this to anybody, that is an order."

"Y… Yes sir."

"Dismissed."

All alone in his huge office he stared at the tree of life on his ceiling.

+ I just hope that the introduction of this new variable doesn't interfere with the equations, or the schedule. +

He leaned back further and his chair tipped backwards and laid him flat on his back with his legs twitching in the air.

In a blue sedan driving along the damaged road systems there was a good fight going on.

Inside the car were Ranko, Reika, and an older woman with short dark blue hair with a white streak down the front.

"And just what were you thinking young lady? You know that when the sirens go off you're supposed to get to a shelter and stay there."

"Aw mom lay off ok we got chewed out enough by those Nerv guys, for just being there."

"Don't aw mom me, both of you are grounded for two weeks."

Both of them groaned.

The older woman calmed down a bit. "Now Ranko, I want you to tell me everything that happened."

"Alright, well his name is Shinji Ikari, he's a pretty good fighter." She looked down at the floor mat. "He beat me."

"That's all right you know you're uncle Ranma used to beat your father all the time. So why did you challenge him anyway?"

"That jerk stole my move!"

"And what move was that?"

"He stole my Mouko Takabisha, that was mine."

"I thought that you and your father were the only ones who could pull that off."

"So did I but he did it so he had to have stolen it."

"Well what happened in the eva? How was it inside?"

"Well it took bro here a while to figure out that the stuff in the plug wasn't water. I had to tell him that Shinji didn't change so it was ok."  
"So Shinji's cursed eh?"

"Yeah, but that's not all, he did this really cool move, what was it he called it again? The Ka… Kat something."

"Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken" Reika decided to pipe up. He had been silent for most of the trip since he was being chewed out.

"Yeah that's it do you know anything about it mom?"  
"It's an amazon technique, your aunt Shampoo can do it, you should ask her to teach it to you sometime. If Shinji is Jusenkyo cursed he might have learned it at the local Amazon village."

"Could be but it was still cool."  
"Ranko you said Shinji was cursed, what does he turn into?"

"He turns into a girl mom." Pausing for a second "About 16 or 17 years old, red hair, pigtail. She looks like me except he's better built to boot."

Akane's grip on the steering wheel tightened and she went death white.

"Are you ok mom?" Ranko reached over and shook her mom softly.

"Y… Yeah I'm ok just a bad memory."

The car continued on.

Chapter 5: New Friends and Old

After the Angel was defeated, Shinji got his reward, 25,000 yen and a long weekend. But that was three days ago. As he looked back on those three days he remembered that he and Ranma had gone to the mall to spend his 55,000 yen. Their first stop was the clothing store, to procure some new clothes that would not leave Ranma in such a compromising position each time the transformation took effect. They settled on a sleeveless latex suit just slightly bigger than Shinji. It was a perfect form fitting fit for Ranma. (Which was partially the reason they got it in that size, he had a great female body and wanted to show it off, (mostly to get free stuff)) and an oversized T-shirt.

Their next stop was the athletic store to pick up some weights and other equipment. Shinji had to get the clerk to help him carry the equipment to the door. He then ducked into a nearby empty store where the clerk was sleeping on the job, and kicked in the transformation.

Ranma easily carried the weights as they walked through the mall. With only 500 yen left, they decided to go home and start Shinji on his training schedule right away.

For the next three days Shinji worked out hard. He only stopped to make supper, go to the bathroom and sleep. By the time Monday came around he was exhausted, but his hard work seemed to have paid off slightly. For three days of work his muscles were already starting to show some definition and ripple. They were still very small but they were responding amazingly well to the conditioning. Ranma thought that they were progressing a little too fast. There was no way that his muscles should respond to training this fast, it wasn't humanly possible. But then again it wasn't humanly possible for a boy to change into a girl by getting hit with cold water either, so he put it out of his mind and just accepted the fact.

It was now Monday and Shinji had to go to school. He was sore, all over. Even his teeth hurt. 

/ Morning sleepyhead. You've got to get to school today. /

^ Shut up Ranma, I'm sore all over and it's all your fault. ^ 

/ Go ahead blame the dead man, I warned you to put that heating rub on last night but did you listen, noooooo. /

Shinji rolled over on his side. Right onto a sleeping Pen Pen.

The penguin was not in the least happy to be rolled on. It started pecking him and kicking with it's feet.

Shinji rolled off him right onto the floor.

/ A nice hot shower should cure that weightlifters hangover you've got there. /

He started crawling towards the shower, again not noticing the 'Occupied: Do not Enter' sign. 

A wet naked Misato watched as Shinji crawled by in his boxer shorts into the shower. This time he managed to reach the water faucet and turn it on to a semi respectable temperature. She finished drying and went out to make breakfast.

+ He must really be sore, serves him right though for working out like that. Although he's really starting to show. +

Ranma was right the hot water relaxed his muscles and he walked out of the shower with a towel around his waist. 

When he'd finished dressing he went to put on his Nerv hat.

/ You gotta put it on backwards, that's cool. /

^ Backwards, Ranma that is so 20th century. Here in 2014 we wear our hats inside out and to the back. ^

/ You sure you know what's cool? /

^ Positive, besides what would they think if they saw the Nerv logo. ^

/ Whatever you say kid. /

Shinji walked out of his room looking fairly cool and about a year older than he actually was. He froze when he saw the feast that was before him.

Curry scrambled eggs Misato style, beer, hashbrowns in beer (with curry sauce), more beer, Microwaved pancakes (in beer and imitation syrup), even more beer, Corn Flakes in beer. (I've actually tried the Corn Flakes in beer it actually tastes pretty good but it must be a Canadian ale like Molson ice, or Labbat blue or light)

Misato was busy chowing down on the Corn Flakes and beer. The only thing that didn't have beer or curry in it was Pen Pen's food, raw fish and rice. Shinji eyed it hungrily. Pen Pen warked grabbed his bowl and ran away from Shinji who was chasing him. Misato chose not to notice Shinji chasing her pet and her pet's food around the apartment. She finished her food and slammed back the rest of her beer, and looked at her watch.

"Shinji you're going to be late for school."

She got up and left for work.

Shinji stopped chasing Pen Pen around and looked him squarely in the eyes.

"One day penguin, one day you're going to find her cooking in your bowl, on that day you will suffer the wrath of her bad cooking, and maybe you'll survive and learn to share the wealth." With that he left.

Pen Pen warked, waddled over to his fridge, pulled out a Bud Light.

"Do bee do bee doooo."

Shinji made it to school in plenty of time, but as fate (me) would have it he could not get anywhere. In his path was the infallible Kaechi Kuno.

"Halt foul sorcerer Ikari. I know of your wicked deeds and how you are holding the fair pigtailed girl hostage and bound to your will. I Kaechi Kuno shall defeat you and free her from your wicked grasp."

^ Who is this guy? And where does he get this stupid idea that I'm some kind of sorcerer or something? ^

/ He's a Kuno, that line was never known for it's brains, but if I'm right and Nabiki's his mother, he really should know better than that. /

"Or if you would prefer I will spare you my wrath, and you will release the fair maid and pay me 5000 yen."

/ Well at least we know his mother taught him well. /

"You want her released from my control, then you've got to beat me first."

/ What the hell do you think you're doing? The last thing you want to do is enforce his paranoid delusions. /

^ Trust me I know what I'm doing, I can't lose. ^

/ Great now as long as you don't get killed we should just be fine. /

Kuno charged, his bokken held high above his head readying for the strike.

Shinji just stood there. 

Kuno started his swing, Shinji sidestepped, spun around and landed a full force 360 front crescent kick (like Guile from SF2) right to Kuno's ass, instant Low earth orbit martial artist.

/ Nice. Still your landing after the kick and follow through still need some work. /

^ Yeah I think I gave him too much backspin though, I'm not sure if he'll even make orbit. ^

Meanwhile at Nerv Headquarters.

"Sir we've got outgoing!"

"Nature of the target?" responded Gendo in his usual monotone voice.

"It's not an Angel, could be a missile."

"Is there a heat signature?"

"No sir, it could be a dropper missile."

"Could it be a LEOMA?"

"Sir there hasn't been a confirmed case of Low Earth Orbit Martial Artist, in over ten years."

Gendo thought for a moment.

"You're right, arm the tachion interceptor missiles and shoot it down."

A few button presses away.

"Missiles away sir."

A few minutes later.

"Target remains!"

"Hmmm then it has to be a LEOMA. Jan, erase all computer records and conveniently 'lose' two tachions from our inventory."

"You mean cover it up, sir?"

"YOU mean cover what up?"

Meanwhile back at the school.

Shinji was bored, he'd heard the same boring stories about how the Second impact changed society. He decided to nod off and leave the learning to Ranma.

Ranma however had another idea. He wanted to look up some old friends.

He had Shinji's knowledge of computer systems, and had learned a lot about hacking from reading stuff on the internet 3. Whereas when he was alive he couldn't use a computer to save his life, now he was hacking government agencies.

/ Hmm let's see here. Akane Tendo. Oh man she married Ryoga, let's see two kids, Reika and Ranko. Ukyo married Kei, two kids Shichu and Kaneda. Wow Mousse finally married Shampoo, two kids Hariku and Choja. Man these are weird names. Seems everybody turned out just fine without me. /

The bell rang and woke Shinji. 

^ What are you doing don't you know hacking is not right. ^

/ You can stop one but you can not stop us all. Isn't that part of the hacker's creed. /

^ I give up. ^

In the hallway he was stopped by a large boy and a smaller boy with glasses.

"Shinji I know you're the pilot of that stupid robot, and that you were the one who stepped on my sister."

He threw a punch at Shinji's head, which he dodged.

"Uh Touji I don't think you should be doing that."

"Shut up Kensuke, I know what I'm doing."  
"I'm sorry about your sister but I had no choice." Shinji shot back.

"Yeah right. Like I'm supposed to believe you." He launched another punch, which Shinji just dodged.

"You don't understand I am the only one who can pilot it."

"You've got to be kidding me, a big operation like Nerv has to use kids to pilot the robots, ha you expect me to believe that you were the only pilot, fat chance." Yet another punch.

"You're right they did have another pilot."

"Then why didn't you let him fight that thing, you obviously hadn't been in it before, and couldn't drive worth a damn."

"The reason I had to pilot the damn thing is that the other pilot is Rei."

Touji was taken aback. He stopped attacking. "Rei? She's a pilot. I always knew she was weird but this is just a little much. Why didn't you let her pilot then?"  
"Do you know why Rei hasn't been to school in a while?"

"No."

"The reason why is because she was almost killed in one of the tests and if she'd gone out there to fight that Angel she would have died."

"Why couldn't you have just let the military kill that thing."  
"Conventional weapons have no effect, if I hadn't killed it, everybody would be dead, do you understand, if the Angels win Second Impact is going to look like a firecracker."

"I… I'm sorry, I didn't know you had that much responsibility."

"It's ok, truce?"

"Alright. My name's Touji and this here is Kensuke."

They both turned to look at Kensuke who was furiously scribbling notes about the conversation for analysis later.

"He's a military nut."

Kensuke finished. He turned to Shinji.

"That's it? Any more."

Shinji walked up to Kensuke and smiled.

"Sure there's a lot more but if I tell you, I'd have to kill you." He raised his finger and poked the middle of Kensuke's forehead. "Bang."

Shinji looked down at his watch.

"Oh man I'm late, I've got to get home, Misato's going to kill me."

In unison. "Who's Misato."

"She's looking after me when I'm working for Nerv." He grabbed his CD books and the trio ran out of the school. Touji not looking where he was going ran right into Misato's chest. 

He looked up, and started babbling incoherently. Shinji caught up with him.

"Hey Misato."

"Hey Shinji, I've got a surprise for you."

"Huh?"

"Just come on. And bring your friend."

As they were walking.

"I'm Kensuke, mam." He looked up at her insignia and her rank indicator. "And you must be Captain Katsuragi."

Misato's eyes widened. "How did you know that."

"Well Shinji told us that he was staying with a person named Misato, I deduced it must be a Nerv officer, and since you're the only Captain in Nerv Japan, I figured it must be you."

"But how did you… Oh never mind."

Touji was still mumbling something, he was happy.

"And the sexually stunned idiot over there is Touji. Give him a while, he should be ok."

They rounded the gate. Misato tossed something at Shinji. He looked down at it, it was a card key with an American bald eagle on the back.

"You mean?"

She nodded. "Mm hm." He looked around at the street, there it was, a brand new 2014 hog, almost exactly to his specs. It had a bit more chrome than he'd asked for (actually he didn't even think of chrome but looking at it now, he was glad it had. It was beautiful.) On the gas tank was a tastefully done green dragon on a black gas tank. Underneath the dragon were the words Eva Unit 02. The license plate was blatant advertising. 'Nerv 1' it read. Shinji thought that doing a little PR work for the organization was a small price to pay for such a sweet ride. On the passenger's seat there was a black leather jacket with a big Nerv symbol on the back, and a pair of 'Terminator' style sunglasses.

"Shinji what's with you?" Kensuke asked.

"Oh sweet, thanks Misato she's beautiful."

"Oh yeah one more thing, your access card is now also your drivers license." 

Shinji donned the jacket and the sunglasses.

He turned around.

"What'da ya think?"

"Shinji what are you doing!" Kensuke shouted.

"Don't worry man, it's just a perk of the job."

"Where do I sign up?" asked Touji looking over the bike.

Misato seeing that Shinji was totally enthralled with his new toy turned and headed for her car. She knew he was too smart to ride without a helmet, and she knew that he knew how to drive. (She checked into his background in Russia and learned that he had been taught how to drive by his teacher when he was twelve.)

Unfortunately for the citizens of Tokyo 3 Misato's driving was not as impeccable as Shinji's as she tore around a corner almost killing three pedestrians and coming millimeters away from sideswiping a truck.

"So Touji, Kensuke you guys want a ride?" 

They both looked nervously at each other.

"Uh maybe some other time."

"Suit yourself." 

Shinji inserted the key card and pushed the electric start, the bike roared to life. As always the Harley's had a distinctive rumble. In the early 21st century Harley Davidson had to work on the 'acoustics' of the exhaust system, since anti pollution laws prohibited the massive exhaust output required for a deep resonance frequency.

He rumbled off into the distance looking really impressive.

"I think I'll be walking for a while."

Touji nodded.

"Let's go visit your sister."

They walked off towards the central hospital.

Shinji was having a great time, he'd never ridden an actual motorcycle before. All they had in Russia were old BMW's and some crappy Japanese crotch rockets, they gave really horrible rides, not like this. He leaned back and eased down the throttle. The quad V-engine came to life and propelled the bike at ease down the street. He was about to open her up to see the exact limits of his new bike, when he saw a lone figure wandering down the street. He had a backpack and a headband on.

/ Hey that looks like a Hibiki. He's probably lost. /

^ I think I'll go ask him. ^

He eased the bike up beside the wandering boy.

It was Reika.

"Hey Reika, want a ride?"

Reika turned and looked at him. He amazingly recognized him as Shinji the pilot boy.

"I don't think I should."

"You're a Hibiki aren't you?"  
"Uh yeah."

"Are you lost?"  
Reika scratched the back of his head and laughed stupidly.

"Yeah I'm totally lost, I can't figure out why this GPS system never seems to work."

"Hop on I'll drive you home."

"How do you know where I live?"

"Onboard computer navigation, I just look up your address and it guides me there."

On the road neither of them noticed that the clouds were gathering.

Just as they pulled up to the gate of the dojo it began to pour. Both of them transformed. Ranma had a hard time unzipping the jacket, it was custom made for Shinji and didn't fit her, and it would not give or tear, so it was a tight fit.

He looked on the road and there was a small black piglet trying to pull his clothes and pack towards the house.

Ranma picked up the piglet, and the other stuff.

He looked down at the piglet. 

"Well at least we know you're a Hibiki all right. Let's go get you some hot water"

Ranma was holding the now pig Reika way to close to her chest, it was too much he passed out.

/ Oh great just like Ryoga could never get close to a woman without passing out or blowing a blood vessel. /

^ Look at it this way at least he's not squirming. ^

They entered the house. Ranma noticed that it looked amazingly similar to the Tendo dojo except there was a lot less damage.

/ If this is an almost duplicate of the original, then the kitchen should be this way. /

Ranma walked in the direction that the kitchen should have been. He began to smell something resembling food coming from the kitchen. He opened the door and there she was standing at the stove cooking away, his mind froze.

She heard the kitchen door open and turned to look at who it was.

"Oh hello Ranko, I thought you weren't going to be home for a while." She stopped talking. Her expression turned to one of anger.

"Ranko Saotome, didn't I tell you never to dye your hair, and how many times have I told you to stop stuffing your bra.

"Huh?"

Akane stormed over to Ranma and grabbed him by the ear and hauled him over to the sink. She shoved his head under the tap and started scrubbing as hard as she could.

"Damn it Ranko what did you use? I guess we'll just have to let it wear out." She reached into the shirt to remove the tissue paper from her 'daughters' bra but instead found a latex jumpsuit over all natural breasts.

Her eyes widened and she jumped back.

Ranma was getting furious. "What the hell was that for you uncute tomboy!"

Akane not knowing what was happening pulled her new and improved mallet from behind her back. "Alright who are you?" she demanded.

"You don't recognize me?"

^ Duh of course she doesn't recognize you to her your dead remember. ^ 

It suddenly dawned on her, and she relaxed on the mallet a bit.

"Wait you're that kid pilot aren't you, the one who almost stepped on my kids, Uh Shinji isn't it?"

"Sort of, it's a long story, you'd better sit down." And as an after thought. "Jeez Akane you've really let yourself slide."

That was the last straw, she'd already been insulted twice by this person and that last one was the last straw. 

"Whoever you are NO BAKA!!" She raised the hammer and prepared to pummel the girl in front of her.

Ranma saw the attack coming and decided that the best way out was to disarm her. 

"Katchu Tenshin Amogouriken!" In three seconds flat he'd reduced the wooden mallet to a pair of finely crafted chopsticks.

Akane slowed to a dead stop and looked at the remains of her best mallet. She looked at the girl.

"N… No It couldn't be, he's been dead for twenty years."

Ranma nodded his head.

"Ranma?"

He nodded again.

"You can't be alive, you're dead!"

"Who says I'm not."

With that Ranma ran up and jumped at Akane knocking her down and giving her a really deep kiss.

Reika chose a really, really, REALLY bad time to wake up. There was his mother, on the floor, being kissed by a girl that looked almost exactly like his sister. He gave off a high pitched squeal and then keeled over.

Ranma and Akane broke the kiss to look at the source of the noise. There was Reika on the floor on his back with blood gushing out of his nose like a water fountain.

Akane rushed over to her son sending Ranma tumbling. She picked him up and quickly turned him over and stuffed some tissue up his nose and placed him on his stomach in the sink. She rushed to the closet and grabbed some cleaning tools and quickly cleaned up the blood before it could stain. Then she smelled something, the dinner was burning.

"Oh no."

"As good a cook as ever I see." Ranma had his back turned to her.

WHAM.

There was Akane standing behind him holding a giant mallet.

"What the hell was that?"

"It's my stealth mallet, you never see it coming."

Ranma staggered over to the table and sat down, Akane checked on her son and placed him on a dish and carried him to the table as well.

When she sat down Ranma began his story about how he'd gone to Jusenkyo, gotten killed and how he'd met up with Shinji and their current situation.

"Well that's more or less it." He looked around and saw a family picture. In it was Akane sitting down with Reika and Ranko around her, Ryoga was standing in the background facing the wrong way, with a total lost look on his face.

"Hey Akane, what happened to my mom?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well why did you agree to take care of Ranko for her?"

"You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

Akane took a deep breath.

"Ranma, Ranko's YOUR daughter."

A dull thud.

"Ranma?"

Chapter 6: Revelations 3: 16

When Ranma awoke Akane was standing over him.

"Oh Akane you wouldn't believe the dream I just had. I dreamed I died, then was reincarnated in the body of this kid in this strange future. I dreamed that you were old and had married Ryoga, and had one of my kids. Crazy isn't it." He opened his eyes more and saw that the illusion of his young Akane was replaced by and older version of her."

"It wasn't a dream stupid it's real."

Ranma shot bolt upright. He scanned the room and indeed it seemed to be real.

"Akane? What? How?"

"How can Ranko be yours if you died before I conceived her." She helped Ranma to a sitting position, then took her seat. "After your body was brought back to Japan Dr. Tofu decided to take your semen and have it frozen, just in case. About four years after your death, and a year after he married Kasumi, he told your three fiancées about what he'd done. He gave us the option of having invitro fertilization so that we could all have a child by you. Ukyo and Shampoo went first. I had just had Reika here, so I didn't feel like having another child for a couple of years."

"But why?"

"I needed to Ranma, after you were gone we all missed you. We needed something of yours so…"

"So why?"

"I don't know. I've been asking myself that question for the past 14 years. I have no idea why we did it. I think it was because we loved you and couldn't see you just die after all that you've done for us. It just wouldn't be right."

"I see. So I've got a daughter." He smiled. "I'm a dad, does she know?"

"Not really she believes that she was just named after her uncle Ranma who died, she has no idea that she is not Ryoga's child."

"And she's ok with this?"

"Well we decided that when she was old enough we would tell her the truth. For now I don't think it would be good if she knew the truth, let alone that you are her father. I think that would really screw her up."

"Well it looks like our daughter got the best of both worlds, my good looks and martial arts abilities and your violent temper."

Wham.

^ You deserved that you know. ^

/ Yeah I know, but I get my kicks off it. / 

^ You're sick you know that. ^

/ And your stuck with me so there. /

^ Your impossible you know that. ^

" What were you saying about violent temper?"

"N… Nothing dear. Is she cursed?"

"Yeah she is."

"But she's a girl, don't tell me that she turns into a guy."

"Yes she does. And let me tell you giving her a bath as a baby was terrible. We had to use warm water so that Ryoga wouldn't change, then we had to have spray shields so that she wouldn't piss on us, you know how it is with baby boys and warm water."

"Wait a minute you knew about Ryoga's curse, when did you figure it out?"

"About the second night, when I realized why you two fought so much, and that bandanna was a dead giveaway."

"But why didn't you say anything? I mean we went to so much trouble to hide it from you and you knew all along."

"It was fun to watch you try. I also liked hitting you when you picked on him."

"I liked being hit I guess."

"Pervert."

"You got it." 

Reika was waking up and Akane saw this. She pressed a few pressure points and the little pig fell unconscious once again.

"Akane I've been meaning to ask you, how's Ryoga been? I mean as a husband."

"Ryoga's been a wonderful husband, I mean I still would have preferred you, but he loves the children and me. He has been great, but before we got that augmentation put in his brain to curb his wanderings do you know how many times I had to say ' Ryoga I'm over here.' Or 'to the left. No the left you idiot, that's up, here I'll do it myself.'"

"I see the lost boy gene was passed down to Reika."

"He's not as bad as his father was he can usually make it back home in an hour or two."

"But it's only a ten minute walk."

"I said he's not as bad, I usually get Ranko to guide him places."

"Well score one for cumulative genetics. So about Ranko I was wondering if I could train her. She has such potential Akane, I can see so much of myself in her."

Akane leaned back considering Ranma's proposal. It was true that Ranko took after her biological father in many ways and martial arts was one of these ways. Being thoughtless, putting her foot in her mouth, and being incredibly stupid at times were the other traits. There was certainly no way Ranma could do any harm by training her. She would be overjoyed to learn from somebody who was not Ryoga. 

"Very well, but it must not interfere with her school and if another one of those monsters shows up you will take her with you, wherever you are going is that clear."

"Very clear, mother. By the way whatever happened to my folks?"

Akane took a moment to compose herself. "Well after you died but before second impact your mother was devastated, she had to be put in an institution and strapped down to keep her from committing seppuku because she thought she had failed at being a mother. But after Shampoo gave birth to little Choja your mother's attitude changed, she had a grandson. Then Ukyo had Shichu a few days later and your mother had her hands full with the both of them. After I had Ranko she couldn't believe it, her son had three children and she had three grandchildren. All of the children know her as grandma but they think it's just because it's because of their last name. Sometimes I think your mother still misses you. I think you should go visit her."

"I think I will, but you'll have to give me the address Mr. Morality here won't let me hack government agencies to get information anymore."

She laughed a little before handing him a piece of paper with everybody's addresses on it. Her mood grew more somber.

"As for your father. Well a few weeks before second impact dad and Mr. Saotome got the perfect plan to get rid of Happosai. They captured him in a steal box with spirit wards and heavy chains on it. The chartered a boat to take them to the Antarctic where they planned to bury him in the deepest hole they could dig."

"And then second impact happened right?"

She slowly nodded her head.

"So my old man's dead then."

"Yes I'm sorry."

"Don't be at least he took the old freak out with him."

"Yeah I guess so."

"So what else happened."

"Well Kasumi finally married Dr. Tofu you should have seen the wedding, Dr. Tofu was so nervous that he accidentally said 'I do' to the coat rack on the way in, then to every person in the church, for a minute there we thought he'd gotten himself married to Betty."

"Is he still like that?"

"No but hearing Kasumi talk about the honeymoon, she had to hog tie him before jumping on top. She still does it sometimes just for the entertainment value."

"Oh man that's rich, I would never have thought Kasumi was into bondage."

"Neither did anybody else, but she was always so quiet so nobody knew she was such a wild woman underneath."

"Does she have any kids?"  
"Yes her name's Jenifer, she looks like Kasumi except that her hair has a bright blue streak down the center."

"Hey Akane what about Nabiki and Kuno. Is Kaechi their kid?"

"So you've met Kaechi. Yes he is their son. Kodachi was killed by second impact and Kuno got hit on the head really, really hard. This damaged his brain and he turned normal. Shortly after that he proposed to Nabiki and she accepted."

"Weird. What else…" The cell phone rang. Ranma answered it.

"Yeah… Now? I guess." He hung up the phone. "Hey Akane you got any hot water around here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm going to have to cut our visit short, they need Shinji back at the base for tests."

"Oh Ranma, couldn't you just wait a little while longer I'm sure, Ryoga would like to see you. He won't admit it but I think even he missed you."

"I'm sorry, but we have to go, it's his job you know and he must go when called, it's just the way things are. I'm sure you'll see me again."

Akane returned from the kitchen with the water.

"Before I have to go." He looked up at her. "Akane if we get killed, defending the world, know this, I love you." He then poured the water on himself. Shinji bowed.

"Nice meeting you mam." Then he got his jacket on turned and left.

That night when Ryoga got home.

"Daddy, Daddy I saw mom kissing another girl."

Ryoga looked up to Akane for an explanation.

"It's a long story dear. I'll tell you tonight. Ryoga the table's this way."

Chapter 7: 

Shinji got on his bike, and rode off towards Nerv HQ.

^ She was pretty nice although don't you think you went a little far kissing her as a girl? ^

/ You've never been in love have you? You wouldn't understand. /

^ No I guess I wouldn't. Say you want to see what this puppy'll do? ^

/ Huh? /

Shinji slowly opened the throttle and the quad V came to life. As they rocketed down the streets of Tokyo 3, The local law enforcement did nothing.

^ This is great I can break the law and since I'm Nerv they can't do a thing to stop me. ^

/ Power corrupts /

^ And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Don't worry I'm just trying her out to see what she can do in case I ever need to use it. ^

/ Watch where you're going ! /

^ Oh all right. ^

They managed to make it to make it to HQ in one piece. When Shinji walked into Central Dogma he was greeted with a bucket of cold water courtesy Ritsuko Akagi. 

"Well Ranma shall we?"

"Shall we what?"

"Well we'd like to know if you can synchronize with the Eva in your girl form."

"Doesn't the manual state that only kids born nine months after second impact can synchronize with an Eva?"

"Well we have to try anyway, just in case you can't change back and we have to get you to pilot an Eva."

"Oh all right, just tack it onto Shinji's pay."

As the manual would confirm Ranma could not sync with Eva 01. 

"Ok that failed now we're going to test your physical abilities."

For the next two hours they had Ranma and Shinji running, jumping, punching and kicking, and using Ranma's specialized techniques. From these grueling tests they learned that when Shinji is using Ranma's martial arts abilities there personalities become more synchronous. Shinji was tapping into Ranma's unconscious to use his special abilities. This led Ritsuko to devise a new experiment. They used a psionic wave emitter to suppress the other person. 

They first tried to subdue Ranma and then tested Shinji again. They found that he could do the martial arts moves that he had already learned and memorized in his own mind, but was unable to do the Amogouriken or the Takibisha. She then subdued Shinji's consciousness and tried to sync Ranma in Shinji's body with Eva 01 with mixed success. It was true that he did pass the threshold but not by much. He only synced at 29%, which would be useless in combat.

After everything was all over Ritsuko had tons of new data to analyze, the rest of the staff were so tired that they slept where they fell. Shinji himself was also tired. He'd never done so much work in such a short period of time, but he had to go home and make supper so that they wouldn't be killed by Misato's cooking.

When he walked out of the door he noticed a girl with blue hair and a few bandages on hobbling on crutches away from the complex.

/ Hey that's Rei. Shinji we should probably give her a ride. /

^ You're reading my mind. ^

/ Of course I am. /

Shinji rumbled up beside the still injured girl and killed the engine so that he could talk to her.

"Hey Rei, would you like a ride?"

She turned to look at him with her one good eye. Shinji felt a little creeped out. Her eye was red and lifeless. She showed no emotion, there was no life in her. She looked like the walking dead.

"I… I mean if you want to. I just thought that it would take you so long to get back home walking like that."

"Yes."

She climbed onto the back of the bike behind Shinji and put her helmet on.

/ Weird /

^ Agreed. Hmm let's see, she lives on 34 Tabito street. Let's go. ^

The bike roared to life and Shinji started off for Rei's appartment. When they reached her apartment, Rei got off the bike and placed the spare helmet back where it belonged. She turned and headed for her apartment. Shinji followed. When they entered her place he noticed that it was extremely Spartan, and a mess. There was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the floors probably hadn't been washed since she moved in. Her bed sheet hadn't been changed in months and had blood stains all over it. There were used bandages littering the floor.

"I am safe now, you should not worry about me." Said Rei in an unemotional tone.

"Well that's good."

^ What the hell do I say, she's like ice. ^

/ Sorry my specialty is overly emotional women, the only ice woman I had to deal with was Nabiki and Rei here's deriving new meanings for cold. /

^ I wouldn't exactly call her cold but she's not acting normal. I wonder what she's been through. You know she acts a lot like my father. ^

/ Nah. Maybe you should try to excuse yourself so that you can get home yourself. If Misato cooks I'm going to throw up. /

"Uh Rei. I kinda have to get going now, I've got to cook supper tonight."

"Goodbye then." She turned and went into the bathroom.

"Strange."

Shinji let himself out and drove to Misato's. He made it just in time to stop her from making her masterpiece dish. Curry noodles and beef in beer marinade. Supper went off without a hitch, except for the fact that Pen Pen got into the beer marinade and was stumbling all over the apartment. 

In Gendo's office.

Yes it would be best if Rei were to stay close to Ranma and Shinji so that they can protect her. Authorize the move for tomorrow. + It is too late in the project to replace Rei, she is crucial to the success of the project, if anything were to happen to her the project would be in jeopardy. + Gendo steepled his fingers, tipping his chair back. The chair fell over and he was left laying on his back with his feet in the air.

The next day was a Saturday. Misato was awakened early by the phone.

"Hm…. Um hmm… k." She hung up the phone and slowly crawled out of bed. She'd just been ordered to care for Rei Ayanami and that they were to move her into her apartment today. This was not so bad if it had fully sunk in but being 7 in the morning and Misato not having her first beer, she couldn't fully comprehend the implications of this.

She went into Shinji's room and woke him up with a good swift kick in the ass. She then shuffled off to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

After everyone had woken up fully Shinji started making phone calls. (actually he only called Touji and Kensuke) He knew they may need help moving Rei. He also knew that Touji and Kensuke would work for free just to be near Misato, each for their own reasons.

Shinji was first to leave for Rei's apartment to get everything ready for Misato when she arrived with the truck. He knocked on her door and she opened it and led him inside.

"Well where should we begin?"

"The closet." She said in her atypical monotone voice.

Shinji moved over to the closet and opened it. Inside he found 15 school uniforms like the kind she's always wearing. He packed them into a box. He then moved over to her drawers and proceeded to pack her socks and her underwear. On her desk there were some small trinkets and various other effects. Once these were packed he turned to her.

"Ok what else?"

"That is all."

"That's it?" he said in a shocked voice.

"Yes that is all."

Just then Shinji heard a knock on the door. He went to answer it. There he saw Misato, Kensuke and a dazed Touji.

"Well let's get to work, where do we start?"

Shinji handed her the box.

"Ok now where's the rest of it?"

"That's it Misato, I've looked, the dishes belong to Nerv's cafeteria. The bed is part of the apartment and there is nothing else."

"Damn it and I requisitioned this truck expecting to make a few trips hauling stuff and this is all she has."

Rei was emotionless. She stepped past Shinji and got on his bike.

"Well I guess that's that." Misato got back into the truck. The reason for Touji's condition became obvious, the fact that he got the middle seat of the stick shift truck, he was obviously enjoying himself.

Shinji who had taken it easy on Rei the other day had no intention of 'taking it easy' on her now. He cranked that quad V to half throttle and rocketed down the streets. Rei clutched onto him like Shampoo used to grab Ranma, but this was not a sign of love, it was a sign of fear, and maybe, thought Shinji, a little bit of exhilaration. They arrived at the apartment and Rei disconnected herself from Shinji's torso and walked into the building confused at the new feelings she felt while on the bike with Shinji. One of them was definitely unpleasant, but the other was a total rush. About halfway through the ride the first feeling subsided replaced entirely by the second. She would have to ask Ikari about this.

Sunday was turning out to be a normal day, except for a giant double pyramid Angel hovering over Tokyo 3.

Inside Nerv Headquarters Misato was giving orders like a drill sergeant. Unit 01 stood on the launch pad ready for battle.

Inside the entry plug Shinji got ready for battle. He selected his Tribute to Black Sabbath album and pushed play. He then skipped ahead a few songs to Supernaut and got ready to rock and roll with another Angel.

The Eva shot to the surface and Shinji attempted to take a step off the platform.

"Misato! The docking clamps don't …" The rest of the transmission was static as the Angel fired and hit Eva 01 square in the chest.

"Retrieve Unit 1 now!" yelled Misato.

When Ranma woke up in the infirmary, Rei was standing over him staring. He could only think of three things.

  1. Why was she here?
  2. Why was he naked?
  3. Why did she have her hand on his… leg?

Chapter 8: Angels Strike Back

Rei was just standing there staring at him. Of course he wasn't Shinji but he wasn't going to let on that he was actually Ranma. That would be letting her off the hook too easily and he wouldn't be able to have any fun screwing with her head. Maybe he would even get a smile out of her. 

/ She is kinda cute but she's just too creepy with those red eyes and lack of emotion. Guess I'll have to put some extra effort into this one. /

Completely forgetting that he was useless around women, and his initial failure with Akane, Ranma decided to try to get Rei to open up.

"You're awake."

"Yes I am. Thank you Rei."

"Thank you? Why?"

"You stayed here to watch over me. Thank you."

"Commander Ikari told me that I should watch over his son, so I am here."

/ Frigid little bitch ain't she. /

Ranma wanting to pour on the charm decided to get up, completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn't wearing anything. Rei looked down then straight ahead.

"What are you doing?"

"Well if I'm going to thank you properly I thought I should do it standing. I have to bow you know and that's really hard to do when I'm laying in the bed."

Ranma closed his eyes and faced Rei. He bowed deeply. Shinji woke up and took control right at the pinnacle of the bowing motion.

^ So what have I missed? ^

/ Not much I'm trying to get Rei to loosen up a bit. She's too uptight. She stayed by our bedside all the time we were unconscious. /

^ Then why are we bowing? ^

/ I'm trying to thank her. /

^ Ok now why are we bowing to Rei naked? ^

/ Naked? /

^ As in clothing impaired. ^

/ Sorry /

^ You owe me one you bastard. ^

/ Hell now that she knows what's under the hood she might give you the courtesy of showing you hers. /

^ Like hell. ^

/ It could happen. /

Shinji still ninety degrees from upright reached over and draped the bedsheet around himself.

"Is that how one gives thanks to another person?" asked Rei in an inquisitive voice.

"Uh more or less."

Misato walked in.

"Ah Shinji you're awake. Good are you well enough for a briefing?"

"I feel fine, except for a slight burning in my chest."

"Don't worry about that it's just a little residual feedback from the Angel's attack. Ok you've been out for 5 hours. During that time the Angel has positioned itself directly over HQ and has begun to drill it's way through the many armored layers that are above central dogma. We've tried conventional weapons including the new XP-580 particle accelerator gun. The problem is that the Angel has a defensive range of four kilometers, and nothing we have has that type of range. We estimate that it will penetrate the Geofront within ten hours."

"Let me have another crack at it."

"No it's too dangerous."

"But Misato the only reason that it hit me was because I couldn't move. If I could move around I could probably dodge it's beam and kill it."

"No that first blast almost killed you and besides the Angel is hovering too high off the ground for your Eva to reach it."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Don't worry Shinji I've got a plan."

The scene is a Japanese highly classified weapons hangar. There is a massive mumeson accelerator gun that is designed to destroy incoming targets up to 25 kilometers away. It is surrounded by technicians. Misato dressed in an incredibly (illegal in all provinces and most states.) mini skirt and string top with 10 cm heels and fish net stalkings walked into the hangar making sure to put a little extra 'bounce' in her step. She put on an extremely convincing 'dumb blond' act claiming that she was lost. While all of the technicians were trying to come to her aid, Rei in Unit 00 quietly lifted up the roof and took the gun, the 'snuck' off the base. (as well as a 25 story tall robot can sneak anywhere)

After Misato had managed to dislodge a few gropers and various other lechers she arrived back on base. + Maybe I should have just let Shinji go and fight the damned thing. + She thought as she entered Central Dogma. 

Ritsuko was the first one to spot her.

"What isn't Nerv paying you enough?"

"Shut up Ritsuko this is what I had to go through to get you that new toy."

"Couldn't you have just asked the army for the gun? I mean we are above the army and we can get anything they've got."

"Doh!"

"Well now that we've gotten that out of our system would you like a quick rundown of what we've got planned or is Juan waiting for you on the corner?"

"I said shut up Ritsuko." 

"Ok, Ok well you got the gun and that's good. The bad thing is that we'll need to black out all of Japan to power the bloody thing."

"Damn it that means that my VCR's timer won't record X-files."

"Cut it out ho. It's the best we can do. Now if the Angel manages to fire first we've managed to rig up this shield here."  
"Isn't that the old space shuttle Discovery's outer hull?"

"Yup we think it'll withstand a full 10 seconds worth of the Angel's weapon."

"And after that?"

"Charcoal. And the end of the world."

"Groovy."

In the pilot's change room Shinji was practicing his kata's trying to remember how the newest one that Ranma had taught him went. He was almost finished a flawless execution when Gendo walked in. This minor disruption caused him to lose his concentration and screw up.

/ You have to learn to tune out the world. If you can get into the 'zone' you will be completely focused and you won't make any more mistakes. Now try it again, and see what he wants. /

^ At the same time? ^

/ Yes. /

Shinji began again.

"Yes father what do you want?"

"Shinji you're going out there again, if you fail there will be no second chance, no rewind to go back and make it all better. The plan outlined by Captain Katsuragi will work, I am ordering you to follow it exactly, I do not want anything unexpected do you understand, NO heroics." He turned to leave and just as he was reaching for the doorknob Shinji replied.

"Isn't that what you're paying me for?"

Gendo hung his head and grumbled but let it slide.

Shinji in Unit 01 were laying on a hillside with the gun tucked under his left shoulder. He was listening to Misato go on about the targeting system and how this one shot would overload the breakers and there wouldn't be enough time to get off a second shot so he shouldn't miss. Rei broke in over the Eva to Eva communications.

"Goodbye Shinji. I won't let anything happen to you."

"Rei…"

Just then the green light came on in his entry plug signaling that the operation was about to commence.

Shinji pulled down the targeting helmet and watched as the computers figured out the optimal firing sequence. The triangle and the square got closer and closer to each other. Shinji just waited. When the targets turned red and started flashing Misato yelled.

"Do it now Shinji!"

To which Shinji pulled the trigger.

A bright blue beam shot from the end of the gun. Highly charged mumesons travelling at 0.9999999 c shot towards their target. At the exact same moment the Angel fired. The gravitational field created by the highspeed particles interacting with each other caused both shots to be deflected. The Angel's shot hit the transformers behind Shinji. Shinji's shot hit a Starbucks, killing several caffeine addicts who had disregarded the sirens in order to enjoy another cup of coffee.

"It's firing again, Shinji, Rei get out of there!" yelled Misato over the intercom but it was too late. The Angel's second shot was right on target this time. Shinji covered his eyes and blanked out.

From what eye witnesses described next Rei did her job and shielded Shinji from the full effects of the blast. Unit 01 stood up and brought it's hands together and a glowing ball started to form. By the time the full Mouko Takabisha was ready Unit 00 had already sustained 4 seconds from the Angel's attack and the outer plating was already severely melted.

The blast from Unit 01 hit the Angel and vaporized it instantly, there was nothing that remained.

Unit 00 hit the ground at the same time that the emergency plug eject system was engaged in Unit 01. Shinji exploded out of the plug in mid air and landed on the ground running towards the downed Unit 00.

When he arrived eyewitnesses described as he tore the entry plug plating off Unit 00 with his bare hands, then pull the plug out onto the grass, tear the plugs door off it's hinges and drag the unconscious pilot out onto the grass just as the emergency rescue personnel arrived on the scene.

Later outside Gendo's office Shinji and Ranma were sitting on the bench. Ranma was having a severe talking to with Shinji.

/ Just what the fuck happened out there? /

^ I still don't know what you're talking about I just woke up 5 minutes ago. ^

/ Shinji you ripped the plating off Unit 00 and saved Rei, now I know that that's not fucking humanly possible, I mean Ryoga was strong but even he couldn't have done 

that! /

^ Done what? I have no idea what you're talking about. ^

Ranma then replayed the entire scene as he saw it.

^ I don't believe it. Are you sure you didn't do it? ^

/ Positive, I wasn't in control. /

^ Well I wasn't in control either. ^

/ Well then what happened? /

^ I have no idea. ^

Chapter 9: Have Power Will Travel.

Shinji was once again sitting in Gendo's office. His hands were heavily bandaged because even though he had the strength, for whatever reason, to tear the rear plating off Unit 00 he wasn't strong enough to prevent himself from getting burned.

Misato and Ritsuko were standing over him asking flurries of questions none of which he could answer save those from what Ranma had showed him. After about an hour of grilling Shinji Gendo dismissed everybody.

This was unexpected and could possibly be a threat to the project. It was thought that the amount of integrated Angel DNA in the marduke children was so small that it would not manifest itself in any sort of special abilities. To this end SELE decided that it was not worth the effort to devise a scenario where this was the case.

A small red light started flashing on Gendo's desk. He sighed and adjusted his glasses. It was SELE they probably wanted answers. He slowly got up from his desk and walked into a small broom closet and closed the door. He pressed the green button on the control panel next to him and suddenly he was standing in his usual place at the SELE council chambers.

"Gendo I'm sure you know why we called you here."

"Yes."

"Proceed then with your report."

"We have not been able to discern much regarding Unit 01's pilot's unexpected and as yet unexplained feat of unnatural strength. It is my belief however that our original dismissal of the Angel DNA factor was in error."

"You're saying that this feat of strength was due to the Angel factor, preposterous."

"Yet it is the only solution I can come up with."

"You may be correct, order strict testing and see if the Angel DNA has indeed become active."

"Yes."

"You are dismissed."

Gendo faded out.

"This could be a hindrance to our plans." Said one of the shadowy figures

"Yes I agree but if we were to gain control of this power, our original plan would be completed." Said another.

"I agree, but if we are unable to harness the power we must destroy all hybrids, or risk 3rd impact."

"It is agreed then, if we can not gain control of Shinji he and all the other hybrids must be destroyed, after they have defeated the Angels."

Gendo was sitting at his desk. He knew what they wanted, and he knew that they would terminate with extreme prejudice if their plans were thwarted. He would have to convince Shinji that what they were doing was right, and hopefully he would agree.

Hopefully, for all their sakes.

In Misato's apartment Shinji was at the stove cooking supper, while Misato was sitting on the couch drinking the American beer Shinji bought for her and watching TV. Rei was laying on her stomach having a staring contest with Pen Pen. 

"Shinji!"

"Yeah Misato?"

"If you ever buy this watered down beer again I'll kill you."

"I just thought that since you drink so much beer, you shouldn't be drinking so much alcohol."

"I like alcohol it's one of the five major food groups."

"Lemme guess. Curry, beer, chocolate, potato chips, and instant ramen."

"You got it."

It was two minutes later and Rei and Pen Pen were still staring at eachother. Then Pen Pen let out a wark and blinked, sort of. Rei confident that she'd won got up and wandered over to see what Shinji was doing. She wasn't really trying to have a staring contest with Pen Pen she was just thinking.

"Why did you save me?"

"What?"

"On the hill why did you save me?"

"I can't remember doing it, but even if I was in control I couldn't just let you die."

"Why?"

"Why are you asking me? That's a stupid question why would you want to die?"

"I don't want to die, but even if I do I can be replaced."

"What the hell are you talking about? That's impossible nobody, not even a clone can be replaced."

Rei looked startled, did he know?

"But I'm not special."

"Sure you are, you are Rei Ayanami. Even if somebody made a clone of you they would be unique also. They would be a separate people and could not be replaced."

"I think I understand."

"Rei?"

"Yes."

"I want you to do something for me."

"What?"

"Smile."

"Smile?"

"Yeah I want to see what you look like with a smile on your face. From the first time we met, you've never smiled."

Truth be told Rei had never smiled. She knew how but she had never figured out the purpose of doing it. She curled her lips into a smile.

"There you go. Now how do you feel."

"I don't feel."

"Oh come on you must feel something."

"No. Thank you."

And she walked over to where Pen Pen was and started another staring contest with him.

/ Hey Shinji wake up! /

^ Huh? What? What'd I miss? ^

/ Not much here. Do you mind taking over cooking, supper's almost ready. /

Sitting at the table Shinji, Misato and Rei were sitting eating supper in relative silence. Misato was reaching across the table to get some more rice when she accidentally spilt her open beer can on Shinji.

"What'd you do that for" Ranma yelled as she jumped away from the rest of the beer. Tearing Shinji's shirt to shreds. 

Rei sat at the table staring at Shinji who had just changed into a girl. She was obviously shocked. (her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open 3mm.)

"What?"  
Misato realizing that Rei had never met Ranma or seen the transformation before decided that the best course of action was to just tell her the truth.

"Rei I'd like you to meet Ranma Saotome."

"…"

The rest of the meal was spent with Misato and Ranma taking turns telling the story, Misato yelling at Ranma to go put something on, and to show some female modesty. And Misato glancing ever so often at Ranma.

After supper was over Ranma went and changed back. After all Shinji had training to do. A while after Shinji had gone into his room to lift weights, Rei got tired of having staring competitions against Pen Pen. She was bored so she got up and decided to go see what Shinji was doing.

She walked in and saw Shinji in his underwear lifting weights. He heard the door open and looked to see who it was. He was so frightened seeing Rei standing there looking at him that he dropped the bar on his chest. It hurt. Rei calmly walked over and helped him lift it off himself, then she helped him up.

They were sitting on the bed Shinji still in his underwear and Rei in her usual school uniform. Neither of them said anything. Then without warning Rei pushed Shinji onto his back onto the bed and jumped on top of him. He struggled but even though he'd gotten a lot stronger because of his weight training she was still stronger, and held him down. She lowered her head to his and was just about to kiss him… when Misato burst in.

"Damn it. What the hell do you two think you're doing. I can't believe it it's only been two days and you're already jumping his bones!"

She stomped over and pulled Rei off Shinji.

"I can't believe it! Shinji you should know better. And Rei you little tramp, I had you figured wrong you slut." She turned to face Ranma. "And as for you Ranma I hold you responsible, being older you should have known better."

/ I couldn't do anything. /

"He…" 

"I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth young man."

She stormed out of Shinji's room dragging a giggling Rei behind her. She was so furious that her charges were fucking under her roof that she failed to notice. Actually she was furious that she was 26 years old and her two 14 year old charges were getting more than she was. Life wasn't fair.

Ranma and Shinji however noticed.

/ You still owe me 30 more reps. /

^ Aww man. ^

/ You've had your fun for the evening now it's back to work. /

That night Pen Pen couldn't sleep a wink. Mainly because he couldn't close his eyes.

Chapter 10: Here's Azuka (finally)   
  
The next day brought sunshine. To most it was a welcome event but to those poor souls who were about to acquire new orifices due to their conduct the night before. Shinji and Rei were among these people. Rei was up first and decided to make breakfast. Finding something not beer or curry was quite difficult so she decided to make curried rice and egg omelet.   
The sun pierced Shinji's eyelids and worked it's way up his optic nerve to pound on his brain. Actually it was pounding on the current conscious occupant of the brain. Ranma. He was used to his old man waking him up with a few well placed kicks, or Akane with her mallet and then later on with a well placed kiss depriving him of all oxygen until he woke up. The sun was never a factor in his waking up. Until now.   
He slowly rose up out of the soft bed and worked his way over to Shinji's dresser and got dressed for the day. He made sure to wear the latex suit just in case, because for some reason water was unnaturally attracted to him. Cold water never the hot stuff. He wondered if fate really did have it out for him, but decided that that question probably shouldn't be answered.   
He opened his door and instantly the smell of curry caught his nostrils and pulled down.   
/ Oh man Misato's cooking again. /  
He wandered into the kitchen to see Rei at the stove trying her hardest to keep the eggs in the frying pan and failing miserably.   
"Morning Rei."   
"Good morning Shinji." She replied and continued on with her task.   
Misato came into the room and glared at Shinji then at Rei.   
"Uh good morning Misato."   
"Don't good morning me. Now you know I'm not too happy with you two." She started in an amazingly cool, calm and collected voice.   
"Well ahh…"  
"Now I didn't want to do this but since I'm responsible for you two and it won't look too good if Commander Ikari found out that you two were screwing like dogs in heat."   
"But…"  
"Let me finish Shinji. Now, from now on there will be some new rules around here. Rule number one. There is to be no sex under this roof. If there is anybody having sex here it will be me.   
Rule number two. You may associate with each other but any sexual or other type of relationship that may lead to sex will be dealt with immediately.   
Rule number three. Your respective rooms are off limits to the other person, except in cases of extreme emergency like an angel attack.   
Rule number four. Rei. You will not have any more staring contests with Pen Pen. He dried his eyes out and couldn't blink for two hours last night, I had to take him to the vet. Are there any questions."   
"Yeah Misato would you like me too ahh relay this info onto Shinji when he wakes up or would you prefer to tear him a new asshole yourself."   
Misato facefaulted. She'd completely forgotten about Ranma and didn't even bother to ask who was in charge.   
Rei had an idea. She grabbed a glass of water and doused Ranma with it. He as expected changed into a she. He was just about to protest but was cut off by a pair of rather pale lips connecting with his, I mean hers. Misato just dropped her jaw. "Well the rules say that there is to be no sex between me and Shinji but Ranma here's not included."   
"But…" He started to protest.   
"He's a she so it's all right then."   
Misato was trying her best to think of an appropriate response, she wasn't against lesbianism but then again Ranma was really a guy, a fairly cute one at that from what she could find on him, but it just didn't seem right for a fourteen year old girl to be doing such things. She was just about to launch a rebuttal when her cell phone rang. Just what she needed right now. She was supposed to meet up with the United Nations heavy carrier fleet to escort Unit 02 and it's pilot into Japanese waters. Babysitting that's just what she's been doing. God did she hate being a wet nurse to a bunch of children, although as of late they had been acting anything but like children.   
"So who was it?" asked Ranma now female.   
"It was Nerv, guess what you two are coming with me to escort a new Evangellion from the States to Japan."   
"So that means we're out of school for the day then."   
"Yup you've got fifteen minutes to get ready we'll eat on the way."   
Ranma ran off to the bathroom to change back and dry off. Rei dumped their 'breakfast' into Pen Pen's bowl and threw the pan into the sink just like she did at her old apartment.   
He waddled over and took one look. A single tear formed in his eye as he picked up the phone and started dialing a local fish market to get himself some breakfast because there wasn't anything edible in the house.   
"Goddess hotline how may I help you?"   
"Wark?"   
  
At the helicopter Kensuke and Touji were waiting for them. Misato was obviously shocked.   
"How? How the hell did you guy's find out about this? It was supposed to be totally secret."   
"Well I figured that since Shinji and Rei weren't at school yet so I figured that something was up. Then I checked around on the internet and found some satellite photo's of the UN fleet sailing towards Japan, I put two and two together and figured that you guys were going to meet them. Then I figured that you'd need a helicopter…" began Kensuke  
"But…"  
"Actually Shinji phoned us and told us what was going on." Offered Touji.   
Misato lowered her head and put her hand on her brow. She sighed.   
"Alright, alright already you can come, BUT you must stay out of trouble is that understood."   
Both of them jumped to attention and saluted.   
"Yes mam'!" they shouted in unison.   
"Alright now get your assess into the copter we're late already."   
The two extra 'unexpected' passengers took up two extra seats. Therefor somebody had to sit on somebody's lap. Rei offered to sit on Shinji's lap but Misato slapped that down. As it ended up it was Misato sitting on Touji's lap.   
^ How the hell is he keeping it down? Man he's got to have some major control. ^  
/ I've got no idea hell I can meditate a bit but with that sitting on my lap I don't know if I could resist. /  
^ In your girl form too? Man are you sick! ^  
/ Hell yah don't you know girl girl can go for hours. /  
^ But I thought you were a guy? ^  
/ Hey I AM a guy! /  
Unbeknownst to either Shinji or Ranma or anybody other than Touji and Misato was the fact that Touji was less than perfectly fine. In fact he was about seven inches less than perfectly fine. It started about two minutes into the flight he'd tried everything to not think of the fact that Misato was sitting on his lap, so close, too damned close. She realized that maybe, just maybe it wasn't such a good idea to sit on the lap of a walking pile of hormones. But since this was the most she'd gotten in months she decided to let it slide but never to let this kid near her again.   
+ Two inches more and I'd be screwed. Both literally and figuratively. +  
As they approached the carrier Kensuke was so busy snapping pictures that he didn't notice the wet willie coming his way courtesy Rei. She crept closer reaching her finger out. Splort!   
"Yahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" He jumped so high he hit his head on the roof of the helicopter and dropped his camera into the pacific.   
Rei smiled. "These ships are top secret, can't have him taking pictures now can we." "But did you have to knock him out?" questioned Shinji.   
"Of course, would you rather I have grabbed him like this." As she demonstrated her new technique on Shinji. Misato was about to break them up when the seatbelt sign lit up and she couldn't move. Shinji of course couldn't move either but with Rei's hand between his legs it was a totally different reason.   
As soon as the chopper landed on the deck of the pitching carrier Kensuke regained consciousness, with a little help from Rei of course.   
+ I wonder what's gotten into her? + thought Misato. She started acting weird about a day after she moved into their apartment. Something was just not right with that girl and it wasn't her hair or her eyes.   
Touji stepped off the helicopter attempting to conceal the raging hard on in his jeans, and failing miserably. A sudden gust of wind combined with the fact that he was leaning over caused his hat to act like a parasol, it took off across the deck of the carrier and he took off after it. Running as fast as he could he managed to catch up to it but not before it was stepped on by a pair of ladies sneakers. He grabbed his hat and looked up. Really, Really bad timing.   
A gust of wind caught the young woman's flowing skirt and lifted it up and Touji's eyes at perfect viewing position he caught the full blow of her furry pink panties staring him right in his eye.   
Also having just seen what she had, he of course was in perfect position to pay for services rendered. Payment being one express mailed slap upside the head. "What was that for?"   
"Payment for services rendered of course." She said walking away from the fallen Touji and slapped Kensuke. Having just barely recovered from the Reiing he received in the helicopter another blow almost put him out, but instead only put him on the deck. She was about to slap Shinji for looking when a huge wave smashed against the side of the ship sending sea spray all over the deck. This was enough to trigger the transformation that Ranma waited for for the longest time since it gave him a chance to be in control.   
Azuka's eyes were bugging out and her jaw was almost on the deck. Touji and Kensuke were in not much better shape.   
"He... He... She..." began Azuka.   
The boys were just too stunned to talk or even make sounds similar to talking. / Oh well they know our secret now. Before they get the full story I'm going to have a little fun with this. /  
^ What? Oh no. ^  
"Hey Azuka, you call that built. Check this." He pulled up his shirt revealing everything. Well everything under his shirt which was the latex suit. Touji sprouted a massive nosebleed and collapsed on the deck, and Kensuke who was already on the deck just passed out.   
"Ranma have you no feminine modesty." Shouted Misato.   
"Not a shred love. I'm a guy remember." He said as he proceeded to saunter off in search of hot water, cocking his hips side to side with every step just to emphasize some point which was not recognized by either girls. Rei would have been laughing her ass off if she had not been walking side by side with Ranma doing the exact same thing.   
"You must have been really desperate for help eh Misato?" she said with her eyes narrowed.   
Misato had one hand on her brow and it covered her eyes. She was looking down in an exasperated pose.   
"You could say that. Damn I'm going to send both those nutcases to the funny farm when this is all over."   
"I imagine you have an explanation for this?" she asked.   
Misato reached into her inside pocket of her Nerv uniform and pulled out a small book and handed it to Azuka.   
"What's this?"   
"The whole story, I suggest you read it before lunch or you'll be at a tactical disadvantage."   
Azuka stared at Misato as she hauled away the two limp forms of Touji and Kensuke so they could be 'treated' for their injuries and or hormonal imbalance.   
As she rounded a corner on her way to the infirmary she ran into some scruff. As her eyes traveled up she dreaded every centimeter of what she saw. Ryoji Kaji.   
"Ah Misato long time no see."   
"Not long enough now out of my way I've got wounded here."   
He gracefully sidestepped Misato then whirled and followed her from behind. His favorite view.   
"Couldn't stand the sight of Ranma I see. Yes that one there is a fine looking young lady."   
Misato spun around just in time to see Ranma still in female form punt Kaji down the hall and onto the deck.   
"I'm a GUY!!!!"   
"Thanks Ranma."   
"Was he bothering you?"   
"Yes he was."   
"Then I guess I'll have to kick his ass again for that too."   
Misato bigsweated.   
"You mean that you kicked him ten meters for calling you a girl?"   
"You got a better reason to kick a jerk like that?"   
"No, no I guess not."   
"Why haven't you changed back yet?"   
"Well it's because I don't have access to anything." Holding up Shinji's badge. "I don't exactly look like this handsome little devil here do I?"   
^ Handsome? Ranma are you sure you're not a girl? ^  
/ I'm a guy, I was just trying to compliment you OK? /  
^ Never mind just change back already. ^  
  
Later that day everyone was sitting around the mess hall table having coffee. Except of course for Touji and Kensuke. Both of them had to stay behind in the infirmary because of medical conditions. Touji had severe blood loss and Kensuke had a concussion.   
"Look what you've done Rei, Kensuke's in the infirmary with a concussion what do you have to say for yourself?"   
"I'm sorry Misato. I'll make it up to him later." She replied with a glint in her eye.   
Waving her hands frantically she tried to get Rei to change her mind on that. "No, no a simple apology is enough."   
"As you wish."   
"Oi Shinji." Broke in Kaji  
"What do you want?"   
He leaned over and started whispering in Shinji's ear. Close enough to freighn secrecy but loud enough so that the rest of the table could hear.   
"I was just wondering, is Misato still a wild woman in bed like I remember her, or has she tamed down in her old age?"   
Shinji leaned back and responded loud enough so that the entire table and a few of the neighboring tables could hear.   
"Ah yes, so you're the Kaji she's been screaming. Do you know it took me a whole week to get her to scream my name properly?"   
The entire table facefaulted.   
Misato got up and grabbed Shinji by his collar. "Why did you say that? Why? We haven't slept together."   
Shinji calmly took a sip of his tea, then looked straight at her. "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer."   
She let go and he returned to his seat.   
"Although I think she prefers Ranma."   
"WHAT?!!!"   
Misato wound up for a giant slap when Shinji effortlessly flipped away. Unfortunately he forgot he was on a ship, so he miscalculated his jump. He landed ontop of Azuka.   
"Get off me you jerk."   
"Oooo just when I was getting comfortable."   
"Pervert!"   
"Tomboy."   
/ Oh boy /  
Fifteen minutes later Rei was still watching intently as insult after insult was thrown around. Names were called left and right, they had almost come to blows a couple of times but were restrained. If she could Azuka would have malleted Shinji into the lower decks, but as it is this story prohibits anybody without a class three operators license from operating an interdimensional Shinji whacking device.   
/ You do know that this is how Akane and I acted when we first met? /  
^ Yeah I know. Hey we're not anything like you two! ^  
/ Yeah I would have been in the deck plates by now. She must really like you. /  
Back in the real world Azuka had stopped her tirade when Shinji all of a sudden went blank and stopped responding to her.   
"Huh? Misato what's wrong?" asked Azuka totally perplexed.   
"Oh don't worry about him. He's just having a conversation with Ranma."   
"Ranma?"   
"Didn't you read the book I gave you?"   
"Actually no, I was waiting for the cliff's notes to come out." She said with a sheepish grin.   
"No I don't like that upstart little bitch! Why the hell would you think that!" Shouted Shinji totally forgetting that he was conversing aloud instead of yelling at Ranma.   
In that moment after he said those words to the next when he was lying on the floor clutching his groin Azuka looked like a younger red-haired version of Akane when she was utterly pissed off at Ranma.   
The expression on her face faded and she became normal once again. She flicked her hair with one hand then bent down and grabbed the now prone Shinji and started dragging him out of the room. She looked at Rei who was having a staring contest with a bug on the table. The bug was losing.   
"Hey Rei you wanna come take a look at my Eva?"   
"Sure why not." She said as she got up and followed Azuka.   
The bug blinked.   
Kaji turned to Misato.   
"Kids these days have no style. Now me on the other hand I would have gone for the more subtle approach."   
He leaned forward. His advance was stopped by a quick rabbit punch to the face.   
Clutching his nose.   
"Misato what'd you do that for? Give us a kiss and make it all better."   
Multiple array of rabbit and all out punches aimed strait at the offending person's head. As Kaji lay there unconscious on the floor Misato thought to herself.   
+ Whoever came up with that addage 'If violence is not solving your problems you're just not using enough of it.' Really hit it on the head. +  
She thumbed her nose Bruce Lee style then continued to drink her coffee and watch what seemed to be a blind bug stumble off the table to it's death.   
  
In a giant hangar on another ship in the fleet the three children stood on a platform looking at the shiny new red Evangellion unit 02.   
"There she is. Isn't she beautiful." Exclaimed Azuka as she swooned over 'her' Eva. "Yeah it's not bad. But I really don't see what's so special about it."   
Slapping him on the back of the head. "Stupid. It's the first production model."   
"Huh?"   
Scowling at him. "Don't you know anything stupid!" You and Rei are only using the two prototypes. This is the first production model. It doesn't have any of the bugs that yours have." She beamed.   
Shinji tuned to Rei. "Uh Rei do our Eva's look like they have any bugs in them?"   
"Could be mine tried to kill me the first time I got in it, but other than that no I really don't think they've got anything major wrong with them."   
Azuka was getting furious at having her baby shot to pieces.   
"Well I've got a better reaction time in Unit 02 than either of you have in your pieces of junk!"   
"So what? I've got a stereo system and reclining bucket seats."   
"Bucket seats and Pearl Jam aren't going to get you out of an Angel attack. Don't come crying to me when you're stuck in a battle and can't get your garbage to move when you need it."   
Suddenly sirens.   
"Red alert, I repeat red alert. Unknown object approaching off starboard bow. Range 150 knots. Speed 15 knots and increasing. All hands to battle stations."   
"Angel." Said both Rei and Shinji at the same time provoking a stunned response from Azuka. This stunned reaction quickly turned to one of excitement. She grabbed Shinji's hand and led him off down the hall.   
When the rounded the corner she tossed a plug suit at Shinji.   
"Get changed."   
"Why?"   
"I want you to see first hand why I'm the better pilot."   
She rounded the corner and her clothes started flying. Shinji unable to resist tried to sneak a peak and got a shoe in the face for his troubles.   
"Stop staring and get changed."   
/ Get changed. She's going to need you. /  
^ Huh? Why? She seems so gung ho about this why shouldn't I just let her go it alone. ^  
/ She's never fought before I can tell. She's scared. /  
^ Scared? ^  
/ Mhm you can tell. That's why she's taking you along. /  
Shinji quick changed and made it back to the Eva first.   
"Rei I think you should get back to the main carrier. It's not going to be safe here anymore.   
Rei nodded her agreement and ran off towards the transit boat that would take her back. But not before giving Shinji a little smack on his butt.   
"What are you waiting for stupid!" Yelled Azuka who was now climbing into the entry plug and starting the preigniton sequence.   
Shinji single hopped from the platform into his seat and strapped in. Azuka was fortunately looking the other way and failed to notice. If she had she would probably have frozen again.   
"Starting insertion sequence. Insertion sequence complete," Azuka sounded off every check on the list sounding real professional about it. Neither Shinji nor Ranma were impressed.   
The giant lumbering beast slowly rose from it's pool and began to maneuver in the 'cramped' confines of the cargo bay. Rei was already well on her way back to the flagship.   
  
Speaking of the flagship that's where Misato was, and she wasn't happy.   
+ This was supposed to be a walk in the park. Why the hell does an Angel have to show up now? +  
The captain was busy with attempting to destroy the attacking Angel that he didn't realize that his weapons were having absolutely no effect on it. He also didn't notice that he wasn't wearing any pants, but that's a different story.   
Thinking fast Misato did the first thing she could think of to get his attention. Problem was she learned it from Rei. She swung her arm back turned her hand outwards and formed it into a claw. She swung her arm forward at great speed so that her claw hand would catch the captain's lower parts so that she could manipulate him to her will. "Now listen here captain. I've fought these things before and conventional weapons won't work!"   
"Young lady exactly what do you think you're doing?"   
"Um getting your attention so that you won't waste time fighting the Angel and lose more ships."   
"Ha you think that I actually want to fight something like that! I've read the briefing I know that nothing but that monster of yours will work on it. I'm just moving the fleet so that we can get in range for you to plug that overgrown extension cord into it."   
The captain took a giant step back. Misato heard some snaps unsnapping and she was left there holding the captain's genitals in her hand. She flinched and recoiled back in horror. The captain merely reached down and snapped them back on.   
"Got my balls blown off in the Gulf War. Had these specially made by Snap-On tools. They have a lifetime warranty if I ever break them I get them replaced for free." He laughed sadiciously then returned to his duties commanding the fleet.   
Shinji and Azuka were having difficulties of their own. With two minds both of which were trying to control the Eva. Poor thing didn't know which one to listen to so it was sluggish and slow to respond. Eventually it would listen to Azuka since she was the one with the neural interface devices on her head.   
"Azuka watch out!!!" yelled Shinji just as she was about to jump on what appeared to be a long rowboat with about five people in it. At the last second she changed her course and jumped on the deck of the Takabano.   
"What the hell is a rowboat doing in the middle of the Pacific ocean!"   
"That was the Inuvick Bay."   
"Five guy's in a boat with some rocks."   
"The pride of the Canadian Navy."   
"And next your going to tell me that they still use diesel subs too."   
"All right then. I guess I won't tell you about their airforce."   
Misato decided that all she could do was watch from the bridge and try to give orders which she knew wouldn't be followed. As she gazed out of the bridge's window onto the deck she saw something that really got her panties in a bind. There on the deck of the carrier was Kaji, carrying a metal case of some sort, climbing into a harrier jumpjet. When he was seated he waved and gave her a wink just before it took off.   
+ That prick! Jumping ship just like that. Damn him! +  
About fifty meters away from the ship the Angel breached and on the way down swallowed the aircraft whole.   
+ Good I hope he gives that stupid Angel heartburn. +  
Unbeknownst to Misato the Angel had eaten a ship containing about a ton and a half of Pepsid AC about forty five minutes before so it could eat whatever it liked.   
She was shocked back to reality when Unit 02 landed on the deck of the carrier causing the entire ship to lurch and the first mate to spill his double mocha latte with amaretto flavoring and whip cream.   
"Aww your so mean. Psh now just look at this who's going to pay for the dry-cleaning? You are so inconsiderate."   
Misato just shook her head and turned her attention to Unit 02.   
"Alright Azuka get ready it's coming strait for us range 2 kilometers and closing fast ETA 1 minute. Get ready."   
"I'm always ready."   
Inside the entry plug however things were not going as well. Since Shinji and Ranma were basically second and third wheels and their interference was causing sluggish reaction times it was decided that they should just talk to each other and try and ignore what was going on with the Eva. Actually Azuka basically decided it by telling Shinji that if he did anything she would 'personally rip his balls off so that he could not contaminate the entire human race'. The deductive logic behind this caused Shinji to decide to talk to Ranma.   
^ So Ranma, how've you been? ^  
/ Same old same old. You? /  
^ Never been better. So what about the weather? ^  
/ We're in an entry plug, it's climate controlled in here. /  
^ Maybe we should have changed then we wouldn't be having these synchro problems now. ^  
/ Nah. It's cramped in here as is. What do you think Azuka would have thought with my breasts pushing against the back of her head? /  
^ She would have probably freaked and kicked the shit out of you and you wouldn't have been able to do a thing since you can't hit girls and always freeze up when a girl is about to hit you. ^  
/ More or less. Hey I've noticed that you don't seem to have a problem with either hitting a girl or dodging a hit. /  
^ Well it is the twenty first century Ranma. I don't like doing it but if I have to it's really no problem. ^  
/ Just don't hit my daughter again or I'll.. /  
^ Or you'll what? Start singing that stupid 'Song that never ends.' Or the Barney theme song? ^  
/ Well I was thinking about when you were asleep taking control and going to sleep with Misato but your ideas are better. /  
^ Why me? ^  
/ Don't ask me. Ask fate. /  
^ Fate protects fools, small children and ships named Enterprise. ^  
/ You're not a small child. So you fool where to? /  
While they were chatting away Azuka had managed to plug herself in and retrieve her new progressive knife from it's holding place in her right shoulder. Now she was in a poor ready pose awaiting the Angel's attack.   
"Alright Azuka just as you were taught." Misato said trying to reassure her.   
"I know what I'm doing. I've been training all my life for this." She retorted.   
One of the bridge hands came up to Misato and tapped her on the shoulder.   
"Um excuse me miss. But can that thing swim?"   
"An Eva swim? I really don't know."   
"Well I was just thinking with all that metal on there it would sink like a stone."   
"Azuka, the Eva can't swim! Don't fall in the water!"   
+ Now she tells me. +  
But of course it was too late. The great white Angel with the big sharp teeth jumped strait at the Eva on the deck. Azuka lunged forward and pierced the Angel's hide but the forward momentum of the 450 ton Angel was more than the Eva could withstand. Both Eva and Angel toppled off the deck into the churning seas.   
+ This can't be a good thing. + Thought Misato as she watched.   
"I'm not ready for this!" Screamed Azuka as she fought with the controls trying to get the Eva under control again.   
"Need some help wonder girl?" Asked Shinji calmly as he leaned over Azuka.   
"Who needs you anyway!" she yelled back.   
"Well don't complain to me when we get eaten."   
"Eat...en."   
"Yeah sure it'll probably want to eat us. That's what those big sharp teeth are for."   
As quick as you can say 'I'm pissing my plug suit' the neural interface devices were on Shinji's head and he was sitting on Azuka's lap.   
The first thing that he needed to do was get out from underneath the Angel. A good kick to what he thought was it's stomach got it's attention.   
"Ewww. Angel puke, hey is that an airplane?"   
"Shut up and drive stupid. Who cares if it's an airplane or not just fight!"   
Misato decided that it would be wise not to get involved.   
Underwater a savage battle raged. The Eva and the Angel battled for survival. The problem for the Eva was that it had to hold onto the Angel or it would sink to the bottom. Shinji was kicking and slashing but the Angel's hide was too thick and the knife was too small.   
"Great it's not working."   
"What do you mean it's not working?!"   
/ Shinji you've got to try the Mouko Takabisha. Hopefully that'll kill the Angel and propel us back to the ship. /  
^ I'll give it a try. Oh god this feels good. ^  
/ What? Oh Azuka. You know hiding a hardon in a plug suit is not easy do you? /  
^ She's going to kill me isn't she. ^  
/ Hell no. She's going to torture you first THEN torture you some more. Then when your on the brink of death then she'll kill you. /  
^ Thanks for the reassurance. ^  
/ Just here to help. /  
"Here I go."   
Shinji concentrated hard. Very hard. He needed to put everything into this one shot. "Don't blow it you pervert!" yelled Azuka.   
"Will you shut up you tomboy and let me shoot!" he yelled back.   
The angel broke free of his grasp, the Eva started to sink. It circled around and started a final charge mouth agape.   
^ Ok just a little closer, a little closer... NOW!!!! ^  
"Mouko Takabisha!!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.   
A bright yellow streak of energy shot from his hands and impacted the Angel in the dead center of it's mouth. The Angel suddenly stopped moving and started to sink to the bottom.   
"We did it!" Shinji yelled as he turned around and kissed Azuka full on the lips. Without warning Azuka's expression turned from one of joy to an Akaneish expression just before she was going to pound Ranma into believing her cooking was good. As you can imagine he rarely got beaten that bad. (It takes alot of beating to make somebody think Akane's cooking was good.)   
  
Back on the ship they were using the power cable to reel the Eva back in.   
"Ahh just like fishing in the North." Beamed the captain as he recalled one of his many fishing trips to the Arctic.   
When Eva 02 was recovered the hesitated opening the entry plug because of certain bumps that they heard from inside. It was Misato's pestering and assurance that they were not doing what the tech's thought they were doing that made them open the plug's hatch.   
Shinji jumped out and started running across the deck with Azuka in hot pursuit with a giant mallet.   
"Get back here you pervert!"   
"Hey I didn't do anything you violent tomboy!"   
/ Just let me off here. I don't want to play again. /  
  
Misato just went off to find a beer. 

Chapter 11 Return of the Cat Fist

Somewhere in Tokyo 3 a blue Syntec 3 sports car raced around a corner and gunned it on the straightaway. Unlike what you may expect this was not a car chase, nor was it a drag race among some pumped up teenagers. It was just how Misato drove normally.

In the drivers seat sat Misato totally transfixed on what was on the radio. She was driving on autopilot. (Author's note: Speed kills. So if you're going to speed, speed slowly.) Shinji had shotgun. Azuka, Rei and Pen Pen were in the back seat. This arrangement was specifically designed by Misato. If Shinji were in the back seat with either Azuka or Rei, really bad things would happen. Rei would try to 'assimilate' Shinji and Azuka would just beat the stuffing out of him.

"Now when we get to Ritsuko's I want all of you to be on your BEST behavior do you understand?"

"Yes Misato." They all chimed in unison since this was the fourth time she'd said this in the past four, make that five blocks.

The blue sports car whipped around another corner then quickly did a 50 km/h parallel park.

"Alright everybody out we're here!" Misato beamed cheerfully.

Everyone slowly crawled out. Everyone except Pen Pen who had not been wearing his seatbelt. He had gotten thrown to the side of the car during the spin. He looked like one of those stupid Garfield car window stick on things. It was really pathetic.

Walking up the stairs to the apartment Shinji had seriously wished that Misato had let him take his bike. Her reason for driving was that they couldn't all fit on Shinji's bike and it would be stupid to take two vehicles. Well stupid from her viewpoint. 

/ Oh man I'm glad I'm not in charge of the body. You must be sick. /

^ Mr. Observant. What did you think? ^

/ I think you'd better stay away from Azuka tonight. I don't think she'll make an over effort to stay away from you. /

^ I guessed as much. Damn you and your morality. I couldn't hit her back there on the ship and she creamed me. ^

/ Hey don't blame me. The thing I can't understand is how she got a hold of that interdimensional hammer. You need at least a class 3 operators license to use one of those. /

^ I would rather not tangle with one of those again. It seemed like no matter where I moved or dodged it always seemed to hit me. ^

/ I don't know how it works, I never could dodge the stupid thing myself. / 

Azuka was looking at Shinji. She still couldn't get used to the fact that there were two people in one body and that they talked to each other. It was just too weird for her.

Azuka walked into Ritsuko's apartment and threw her jacket onto the post that was in the wall. Rei was next. She too walked in, but she did not have a jacket so she continued into the sitting area. Shinji was the last person to enter the apartment. He was busy talking to Ranma so he really wasn't watching what he was doing. He mindlessly wandered into Ritsuko's living room. Ritsuko's living room where she kept all of her cat figurines, pictures, and various other things relating to cats. Needless to say Ranma flipped. Since he couldn't run he screamed. When he screamed Shinji screamed.

Misato who was getting a nice cold beer from the fridge, she heard the scream and took off running… but only after pounding back the beer she was carrying. The rest of the guests at Ritsuko's also came running. When they arrived in the living room they saw Shinji squirming on the ground seemingly in extreme pain.

"Get him outside now!" ordered Misato.

Once outside Shinji calmed down somewhat although he still twitched sometime. Misato squatted down beside him and put her left arm around his shoulder.

"Shinji. Are you ok?"

"I… I don't know. I don't know what happened." Shinji said in a confused scared voice.

"Well start from the beginning." She said reassuringly.

"I walked into the living room then Ranma went crazy. He's blocking me. He won't talk back, Misato I don't know. I just don't know, he's never acted this way before, I'm scared."

"Well if you find out what's bothering Ranma then you'll know what's wrong." She smiled.

"I'll try." Replied Shinji hesitantly.

He closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He dug deeply into Ranma's conscious and then into his subconscious. It was there that he found the wall. He concentrated even harder. Ranma was resisting trying to stop Shinji but since he wasn't in control he couldn't resist very hard. Then it happened.

Shinji was standing at the top of a pit. Below him there were hundreds of cats. This was all fine and good except that the cats all looked ravenously hungry and he was tied up with fish cake. Behind him an unseen man in a white gi pushed him into the pit. 'Yes my son. I will make you a great martial artist even if it kills you.' The man said as Shinji hit bottom. Then the cats. This scene was repeated over and over except different fish products were used to tie him up each of the different times.

On the final time Shinji let out a primal scream and was jarred out of his trance by a massive slap, courtesy Azuka.

"Wake up stupid!" shouted Azuka.

Shinji started shaking.

"Well did you find out what was bothering Ranma?"

Shinji nodded hesitantly.

"Well speak up you moron!" Azuka said. She was getting impatient.

"C c c cats. Ranma's a a afraid of c c c cats."

"Cat's that's stupid! Why would he be afraid of cats?!"

"T t t training." Shinji managed to stutter.

As if by an act of god Ritsuko's pet cat 'fluffy' walked by and started to rub it's head against Shinji's leg.

Shinji jumped and hung upside down from the ceiling. He was noticeably shaking.

+ This is just great. + Misato sighed + We're doomed. +

Rei grabbed fluffy and took her back into the apartment. The rest of the people started filing back in until it was just Misato , Shinji and Azuka in the hallway. Shinji had calmed down a bit. He let go of the ceiling and gracefully flipped to his feet.

"I'm going home." Commented Shinji.

"Are you sure you're ok?" asked Misato.

"Yeah, but if I go back in there I'll just freak out again. Enjoy the party." He said as he turned and jumped off the balcony of the hallway to the street below then jumped to a nearby rooftop and started off for home.

"He's got to tell me how he does that." Said Misato with an awed voice.

Azuka was amazed too but she'd seen Shinji do amazing things back on the ship so she contained her amazement. She was too busy thinking anyway.

+ So the amazing Shinji has a chink in his armor after all. + She smiled an evil smile and returned to the party formulating a plan to get her revenge for his behavior on the ship.

At the heart of Central Dogma Gendo was considering Misato's request to separate Shinji and Rei. She had not given a specific reason, but said that it was not working out. He understood. On the outside Rei seemed to be repressed and withdrawn. But meeting Shinji had awakened her senses. She was becoming human. Worst of all she seemed to be attracted to Shinji. This just would not do. It was set then. Rei would have to go. Gendo leaned back in his chair. He did not tip over though. + Those training wheels I installed work wonders. + He thought to himself.

Back at the party Rei was bored. Azuka was no fun and she was the only other person here her age. She had found Ritsuko's goldfish and was having a staring contest with it. Azuka who was as bored as Rei decided to go see what Wondergirl was doing. She looked at Rei then looked at the fish then back at Rei. She scowled. 

"Stupid, fish don't have eyelids!"

"So?"

"So?! So fish don't blink!" Rei turned away from the fish to look at Azuka.

The fish blinked then turned belly up.

Azuka was giving Rei the evil eye. Both Rei and Azuka turned to look at the fish. Their eyes went wide. They looked around to see if anybody had seen them. Seeing nobody they both backed away, turned and ran back to where the adults were getting blasted out of their minds.

By the time Shinji made it home Ranma was talking to him again.

^ Why didn't you just tell me! ^

/ What was I supposed to say? Ah yes Shinji don't go near cat's or I'll freak out? Yeah right /

^ I guess you're right but you still should have warned me before I went digging around. Now I'm scared of cats. ^

/ Sorry about that. Yeah I should have warned you. I guess I should tell you now. If you're exposed to cats for too long you blank out and think you're a cat. /

^ So not only do I turn into a girl, now I turn into a cat! ^

/ No not turn into a cat. You just think you're a cat. /

^ And what do I do when I think I'm a cat. ^

/ Uhh more or less you shred things, people, small buildings. /

^ Chase mice, birds things like that? ^

/ I don't know but yeah probably. I remember waking up with a dead mouse in my mouth once so yeah you probably chase mice. /

^ I hate you, you know that? ^

/ Sorry about this. /

Misato didn't come home till early the next morning, she was cooked. Azuka had to drive home. When they walked in the door Rei noticed a message on the answering machine. She pressed the button.

'Misato this is Gendo. Your request has been approved. Rei is to move to apartment 452 and Azuka will move in with you. This is all.' The last sound before he hung up was a loud crash as his training wheels broke.

As it turned out apartment 452 was right next door to Misato's. Rei was moving out but she wasn't going far. Gendo couldn't let anything happen to her. It was approaching the time when replacement would become impossible.

The next day Misato woke up, her mouth tasted like carpet. Then she realized that her tongue was on the carpet. She rose slowly feeling every crack and crinkle in her 'old' bones. She let out a small grunt when she finally got to her feet. She felt cold for some reason. Reason: She was naked. Logic dictates she should have remembered getting naked but she didn't remember anything past the firemen and the emu incident last night. That was something she wished she could forget. Looking around her apartment she didn't see anybody. She got over to the fridge with a little help from the chair and table. Upon opening the fridge she noticed that most of her beer was gone. There was only one can left. 

Through the fog that was her brain she remembered that Ritsuko told her that she'd have to bring her own alcohol since Ritsuko couldn't afford to get her drunk. It took most of her supply. Upon downing the last of her beer the fog of last night's drinking battle slowly lifted as the alcohol lubricated her neurons. She slowly wandered about her apartment wondering where everybody was. She slipped into Rei's room and was shocked. What had once been a spartan room was suddenly bulging over with stuff. Even more curious was the fact that some of the stuff had German labels on it.

+ Since when does Rei know how to read German? +

Hearing a commotion in the hallway Misato slipped out of the room. She had some questions that needed answers and they needed answers now.

The commotion was Shinji. He, as the only man, had been volunteered to carry the heavy stuff. As Azuka had put it 'What else are men good for?'. Shinji didn't mind. This gave him a chance to work out and show off his now slightly built body. The 'heavy stuff' he was required to carry now was Azuka's 'small' stereo system.

^ She calls 150 pounds per speaker small! ^

/ Well it could be worse you could have been asked to carry her underwear and be hit every few minutes for being a 'pervert' believe me I know. /

^ Why do women have to do this to us. Tell us to do one thing then criticize us for doing it wrong? ^

/ They're women, I think it's genetic. /

^ Speaking of such. ^

/ I see Misato's up. /

^ She looks pissed at something. Options? ^

/ Run or stand and find out what she wants then run. /

^ Best find out what she wants. ^

"Shinji…" she said sweetly. "WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THIS!!!"

"It's Azuka's stuff."

"And since when does Azuka live HERE?!"

"Well as of last night, dad's orders."

"I never got these orders."

"Well you were too pissed to remember. You pressed the answering machine message then passed out. Basically it says that Rei is to move next door and Azuka is to move in with us."

That seemed sort of logical. She calmed down. "Well can I help with anything?"

"Well if you want to but I suggest you put some clothes on it's still pretty chilly out there."

Misato's calm disappeared. Her face twisted into a scowl. "Oh yes that. Now who's brilliant idea was that one?"

"Well it was Ranma's idea." A bright spotlight suddenly illuminated Shinji. He had a microphone in his hand. "Last night Ranma called out, 'Misato make me your love slave!!' then both of you made wild passionate love for hours."

/ HEY! I did no such thing. /

^ Now we're even for the cat thing. ^

/ Not even close. /

^ Hey! ^

Misato although intrigued by the possibility of Ranma making love to her, could not figure out exactly how he had done so.

"Well Ranma maybe next time you can wait till I'm sober to have your way with me." She shot back.

/ Oh you're really going down for this one. It was your idea to strip her. /

Misato trudged off to her room to get her uniform.

/ Although maybe that wasn't so bad. Thanks Shinji. /

^ But you're a girl! Now I don't know if you're father ever told you about the birds and the bees but some things just don't work! ^

/ It'd be fun to try though. Or I could just use your body when you're asleep. /

^ No way you've seen what I look like naked, besides she's old enough to be my mother!^

/ I'm old enough to be your father so? What's your point? /

^ I still hate you. You do know that don't you? ^

Breakfast came late that day. Partially because Shinji didn't feel like cooking and partially because Misato couldn't find her curry. (They had of course hid it on purpose.)

While everybody was attempting to eat the 'food' she had made, Misato reached under the table and pulled out a bookbag and a girls school uniform.

"What's that for?" asked Shinji.

^ Oh man I hope that's not for you, I would just hate it if we transformed back while we were wearing that dress. ^

/ Oh come on. / chided Ranma / I think you'd look good in a dress I know I would. /

^ I really hate you, you know that. ^

"No Shinji this is for Azuka."

"What?! Why?" Azuka screamed loud enough to make Pen Pen jump.

"Well you have to go to school." Misato replied as calmly as she could.

"Why should I have to go to school! I've already graduated!" She retorted.

Now it was time for Shinji to choke.

"GRADUATED? What the hell? You're only 14!"

Azuka looked back at him with a smug look on her face. 

"Of course I've graduated." She tossed her hair. "I am a genius after all."

Shinji smiled but said nothing. From Ranma's experiences if he'd said anything he would have been pounded into the ground for being an insensitive jerk. For once having a split personality was a good thing. Well that and all the times Ranma's skills had saved his ass in fights with the Angels.

Misato looked at her watch. "Oh shit! We're going to be late. Hurry up!"

Bodies were tangled, foots were stepped on in a mad rush to get out of the apartment in time to get to school.

Shinji and Azuka rushed out the door only to run into Rei who was standing waiting for them outside her apartment door. The three of them walked down the street when Azuka saw something out of the corner of her eye. Her revenge was now at hand. She rushed over to the object of her desire and picked it up off the ground.

"What is it?" asked Shinji.

Azuka smiled evilly then quickly spun around shoving the cat into Shinji's face. He screamed and jumped back. When he landed his knees buckled and he landed on his back. Azuka was ready for this. She rushed up to him and shoved the cat into his face and held it there. Shinji squirmed and screamed. Then to everybody's surprise he stopped squirming. Azuka removed the cat and let the poor animal go. She looked down at Shinji. She was smiling ear to ear. Shinji looked up at her.

"Well now we're even you baka." 

Shinji's eyes suddenly narrowed, and he let out a terrifying

"Meroooowwwww!"

Azuka's smile vanished. This was not part of her plan.

He leapt at her and knocked her to the ground. He wound up to strike when Rei tackled him. She wrestled him to the ground but he managed to yank one of his arms free. 

The next instant Rei was on the ground clutching her face. Shinji had blood on his hand and she blood on her face. He began advancing on her on all fours. He yowled like a wildcat, then crouched to spring. 

Rei's distraction had bought Azuka enough time. She'd managed to find a lead pipe that had been dislodged from one of the buildings during the numerous battles with the Angels. She ran up and hit Shinji on the back of the head knocking him unconscious.

Rei was cowering and showing something akin to fear. 

"You ok wondergirl?"

Rei did not reply she was too busy trying to conceal the wet spot on her dress. She never thought it possible but she felt fear. Fear for her life. She was just a clone, she shouldn't care whether she died or not, but when the moment actually came she found that she didn't want to die. It was quite interesting, if undesirable.

"Hey! Wonder what the hell's wrong with you?"

"I don't know." She looked at Shinji. "What about him?"

"What the hell happened to him?"

"He's scared of cats."

"Scared of cats! But not ACT like a cat!"

Rei gave Azuka a sideways glance. "And just who's fault was that?"

Azuka began twiddling her fingers. "Well maybe I did go too far with the cat thing." She looked down at Shinji. "But if you tell him about this you're dead." Rei flinched at the 'dead' part.

"Maybe we should get him to a hospital or something?" Rei asked.

"Well I guess we should. Just wait a second."

Azuka bent down and reached into Shinji's pants. After a few seconds she pulled her hand out.

Rei's eyes had an almost Takahashist bulge to them. "What did you do that for?!"

Azuka smiled evilly. "Just curious I guess. Now are you going to help me get him to a doctor. We wouldn't want the super psycho man here to get brain damage now would we? He doesn't have much brain to waste."

Azuka had Shinji's feet while Rei took his arms. Neither one of them was strong enough to lift him all the way off the ground so sometimes his butt would bounce off the ground. It was a strange site indeed. Two girls dragging an unconscious boy in various directions. Eventually they managed to make it to a clinic.

"Dr. Tofu? I've heard that name before somewhere." Azuka commented. 

Together they hauled Shinji's carcass into the lobby. A lady approximately 50 to 60 years old greeted them.

"Hello there." She said sweetly. "How may we help you?" 

Azuka noticed that the woman was once beautiful but age and second impact had taken it's toll on her. Her hair still had a few brown streaks in it but most of it was white now. Her face had a few wrinkles in it. A scar crossed from the top of her eyebrow and proceeded halfway down her cheek. Her eyes had a glow to them, but there was something else. It was like she'd seen her fair share of death in her life. This was not unusual for survivors, five billion people died almost instantly.

"Well our friend here got knocked on the head and he scratched my face." Rei said as she removed her hand from her face to show the scratch Shinji had given her.

Kasumi quickly rushed over to Rei and checked her face. Then she checked the still unconscious Shinji.

"Well your scratch isn't too bad. It shouldn't leave a scar but we still should put some peroxide on it so it doesn't get infected. As for your friend here he took a nasty blow to the head. We'll have to check him out." She led the trio into the examination room.

Sitting on a chair at his desk sat an older man with snow white hair. His eyes fixated on a computer screen. 

"Dr. Tofu." Chirped the elderly lady. "We have some patients here."

The elderly doctor turned around and smiled. The girls were set into an unusual sense of calm.

He looked at Rei. "Well it doesn't seem that bad. It shouldn't leave a scar." He gently applied the peroxide to the cuts on her face. The peroxide bubbled and popped but Rei didn't flinch. "So… would you mind telling me exactly what happened here." Dr. Tofu said, directed at no one in particular. 

Azuka who, with the help of Kasumi, had dumped Shinji face first onto the examination table. Rei started "Our friend Shinji is afraid of cats. It happened a few days ago. Today she," indicating Azuka with a nasty stare. Well as nasty as a non emotional stare can be. "forced a cat into his face and he kinda freaked out."

"Freaked out? How?"

It was Azuka's turn now. "He went crazy, he started acting like a cat."

"He acted like a cat?" This peaked his interest. "Can you show me?" 

Azuka was confused by this, but she tried to comply to the best she could. She got down on all fours and arched her back like she'd seen Shinji do just before he sprang. She raised her right arm and curled it back into the catfist.

"I think this is how it went." She said.

Dr. Tofu was bug eyed. Kasumi did a Takahashi fall.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked getting up off the floor.

"My god I didn't think anybody was that stupid to teach it anymore." Dr. Tofu left Rei and rushed over to where Shinji was laying on the examination table.

"What? What are you talking about?" Azuka demanded.

"No I can't be wrong." Dr. Tofu was talking to himself as he checked Shinji over.

"What is he talking about?" Azuka turned and asked Kasumi.

"Well what you just described is the symptoms of cat fist training. A dangerous technique that is extremely powerful but has the drawback of causing the subject to exhibit a great fear of cats and anything catlike. If the subject is exposed to cats for too long they loose control and start acting like a cat."

"Who would do such a thing?" chimed in Dr. Tofu. I haven't seen a case of this in over twenty years."

"Well he's not exactly normal." Rei said as she got up and went to the sink.

"Not exactly normal?" Asked Kasumi.

Rei threw the glass of cold water on Shinji's head. Instantly the transformation took place. Kasumi jumped back while Dr. Tofu got closer.

"Jusenkyo!" he gasped.

"How'd you know about that!" Screamed Azuka. "It's supposed to be top secret!"

"Well it just so happens that there was a mad rush of Jusenkyo cursings in the late 1980's early 1990's."

"You know…" said Kasumi "He kinda looks like Ranma when he was a girl."

"You know Ranma?" asked Azuka.

"Yeah we knew him but he died almost twenty years ago." Said Kasumi.

It was this time that Ranma decided to wake up.

"What the hell happened?" Ranma asked clutching his head.

"Ranma you jerk. Look what you did to Rei!" Screamed Azuka.

"Ranma?" chorused both Dr. Tofu and Kasumi at the same time.

Ranma looked around and recognized both Dr. Tofu and Kasumi.

"Dr. Tofu. K…Kasumi what are you doing here?"

"R…Ranma but how?"

"That is a long story." Ranma said as he looked down at the floor.

An hour later the entire tale had been told about how Ranma had died then how his spirit had gotten trapped in Shinji's body. Dr. Tofu sat there enthralled, in all of his books that he'd collected about Jusenkyo none of them mentioned the soul of the victim ever getting trapped in the pool. It was extremely fascinating. Then it was their turn. They described how Dr. Tofu had finally proposed to Kasumi, the marriage, and most of the honeymoon. They conveniently left out the part with the police officer, whipping cream, a car battery, jumper cables, and the 1998 Denver Broncos. They also left out the second impact. It was a time they didn't want to talk about since both of them had been working so hard to keep people alive but failed almost every time.

Kasumi walked over to where Ranma was sitting. She raised her hand, and… Slapped him as hard as she could.

"What the hell?" Ranma said holding his cheek. During all of his time at the Tendo's Kasumi had never reacted violently to anything.

"How could you just go off and do something like that?" she scolded him.

"Do something like what Kasumi. Die. Hell I really didn't have much choice in the matter. I had a four foot sword sticking out of my chest." He retorted.

She calmed down a bit. "Does Akane know?"

"Yeah she knows. I think she's fine with it. I think she got over me a long time ago." Ranma said looking her straight in the eyes.

"God you are still stupid as always. Yes she married Ryoga but there's always been a corner of her heart reserved for you."

"Well she's done just fine with pig boy, and besides she's too old for me now." 

Interdimensional hammer to the head.

"Jeeze Kasumi when the hell did you get your class 3?"

"Well just after second impact it was quite violent around here so I went out and got my class 3 interdimensional hammer operator's license." She remarked proudly, then hit him on the head again. "And that was for Ryoga."

"What?"

"You heard me. What was the deal with keeping Ryoga's secret?"

"I gave my word. And…" suddenly there was a big explosion far away.

Azuka's cell phone rang.

^ I can just guess. ^

/ Angel attack. /

^ Why else? ^

Azuka finished talking to the person on the phone.

"Well we have to go."

"Sorry about this Kasumi." Ranma said. "I need some hot water."

"Why?" She said as she walked over to the kettle and poured the rest of the contents into a mug that was lying close by.

"Well you see that was probably an Angel…"

"One of those monsters?" Dr. Tofu said.

"Yeah and you see all of us here are pilots of those giant robots."

"But you're all only 14, well except for you Ranma, you're an old fart."

"Hey I think I look pretty good for forty, but anyway I can't pilot one of those things…" She poured the water on his head. Instantly Shinji took over.

"But I can." Shinji said.

"Who?… Oh wait you're Shinji aren't you?"

"Yes. Umm I hate to ask but do you have a car or something, we kinda need to get to Nerv asap."

"Sorry but we don't have a car." Dr. Tofu said.

"Well then we must be going." Shinji said as he and the girls rushed out.

Kasumi turned to her Doctor. "Poor kid, do you think we should tell him."

"Now Kasumi you know we can't tell him. She's top secret. I knew what I was doing when I got involved with Nerv."

"I know, I still think you did the right thing."

"I hope so dear. I really hope so."

Shinji and the others were running at top speed towards the access tunnel that would allow them to get to Nerv and ultimately their Evangellions so they could save the world. But that was half a city away, and there was nobody around to give them a lift.

^ We're not going to make it. ^

/ You can. /

^ I can't just leave Azuka or Rei. Hey wait a minute. Why did I wake up in a doctor's office, and why does my head hurt? ^

/ Cat. /

^ I'm going to kill Azuka. ^

/ Hey what happened to Rei's face? /

^ Do you think I did that? ^

/ Possibly. But now we have to get to your Eva. /

^ I think I've got a better idea. ^

/ What. Oh no. /

Shinji ran up to Azuka and grabbed her and hoisted her under one arm. He did the same to Rei. The problem was the way he grabbed both girls would be considered rude and improper in modern society. But with the fate of the world resting on his shoulders a cheap feel couldn't hurt. Right? Right?

/ Azuka's going to castrate you, you know this don't you? /

^ Oh man. Oh well might as well get some pleasure before the pain. ^

He gave Azuka's right breast a light squeeze, then tweaked her nipple.

Her battle aura flared stronger than anything Akane could ever produce. 

"Now hold on tight." Shinji said to the girls. "This is going to be one hell of a ride."

"What are you doing you bakaaaaahh!" Azuka yelled as Shinji launched skyward. His feet landed softly on a rooftop. They immediately broke into a full sprint with him and the girls in tow. He glanced around but could not see any trace of the Angel.

^ It must still be quite a ways away. ^ 

A giant leap took him and the girls skyward once again and onto another rooftop, then another, and another. Finally they landed on solid ground. He let the girls down. Azuka kissed the ground. She was visibly shaking. Fighting giant space monsters would barely phase her but a little roof hopping made her almost piss her pants. It is a strange life.

"That was fun!" Rei said in an almost excited voice. "Can we do it again?"

Shinji laughed. "Maybe some other time." He said as both of them ran down the access shaft leaving Azuka kneeling on the ground. She'd catch up later.

Their Eva's were prepped and ready to go. A quick change later and Shinji was sitting in the pilot's seat of Unit 01. 

"Alright let's dance."

| Heyyy Macarena! |

"Nooooooo" Shinji screamed as he pulled the disk out of his player.

"Alright who the hell was fooling around with my Eva?"

Ritsuko flinched but said nothing. It was her sick perversion and she didn't want anybody to know about it. She loved the Macarena.

"Nevermind." Shinji grumbled as he stuck one of his favorite disks into the player.

| War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! |

"Launch Eva's!" Misato yelled from the control room.

Both Eva's shot to the surface. The metal housing around Eva 01 slid away.

Shinji looked up at the Angel he was to fight.

^ Oh no. ^

Chapter 12 A Fate Worse Than…

Shinji looked up. There fifteen blocks in front of him was the worst possible scenario. The angel stretched arching it's back. It was a cat. A giant bloody cat. 

"What the hell is he doing?!" Misato yelled not expecting an answer. "Somebody tell me why he hasn't engaged. Hey Shinji what the hell's keeping you?"

Shinji's nerves couldn't take much more of this. Ranma who actually went through the neko ken training was going berserk in Shinji's brain and Shinji himself wasn't far behind. It was just a matter of time before his will broke. When it did it was a sight to behold.

Eva Unit 01 started running around Tokyo 3 like a chicken with it's head cut off, with it's arms raised high in the air. It was the stupidest sight anyone had ever seen.

"Damn it." Cursed Misato. "Cut his power send Rei and Azuka after it." 

Moments later Rei and Azuka engaged the Angel. Rei let loose with a barrage of rockets, all of which were deflected off the Angel's AT field. While Rei was distracting the Angel, Azuka maneuvered her Eva behind the Angel hoping to catch it with a surprise attack inflicting as much damage with her prog knife before being forced to retreat. To her dismay the Angel had cat like senses and sensed her approach. Worse yet it also had cat like reflexes which was surprising for a fifteen story monster.

The Angel spun around and lunged at Azuka slashing through her armor plating like it was butter. Azuka let out a blood curdling scream as the neural interfaces transmitted the pain the Eva was feeling to her. Azuka's sacrifice did not go unused, for as the Angel was playing scratching post on Azuka, Rei took the opportunity to grab the nearest weapon she could find, a semi truck load full of Twinkies. She powered her Eva's arm to full strength and hurled the truck straight at the Angel's exposed core. The truck disintegrated upon impact with the AT field. The plastic wrappings and sponge cake also disintegrated, but since the filling is made of an otherworldly substance it passed right through the AT field and impacted the core.

On contact with the Angel the Twinkie filling began to burn and eat away the core of the Angel. It howled in pain as the toxic substance burned away at it's life force. Maya who was watching the battle in the control room stopped centimeters away from biting into her Twinkie. Upon seeing the reaction with the Angel she decided to slowly put the thing down.

Distracted by the fact that it was being dissolved the Angel completely forgot about it's attackers. Azuka grabbed her progressive knife and began tearing into the Angel with all her might. With one final death shriek it was over. In the control room Aoba looked at the display. "Pattern blue has disappeared."

Misato looked as though she was fit to be tied. "Get rescue crews out there and rescue the pilots." She was going to have to have a long talk with Shinji when he got back. 

Shinji for his part was not exactly in the best of positions. There in front of him was the largest cat he'd ever seen and here he was trapped in a 15 story tall robot with no chance of escape. It was times like this he wished he'd never agreed to help his father. No that wasn't quite right, it was times like this that he'd never heard of Jusenkyo or it's cursed pools.

The rescue crews seemed to take forever when in reality it was only a few minutes between the Angel's death and him being rescued, but for somebody with a paralyzing phobia it seemed like an eternity. The technicians had to pull him out of the entry plug and wrap him in a blanket he was shivering so badly. What they didn't know was that he wasn't shivering because he was cold.

It was a dark room. They had led him here after they'd rescued him. He was in trouble and he knew it. 

Misato was reviewing the combat footage as seen from Shinji's Eva. She had to admit it looked like a cat sort of, in a very perverse way. She slammed her palms down onto the control panel. She needed to punish him but how? He disobeyed a direct order to engage the Angel, when one was an Eva pilot fear was not an option. 

"I have to do something but what?" She said aloud to no one in particular. Almost out of her hearing range the solution came to her.

"Hey Miya you want to go to a movie tonight?" asked Aoba.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" she replied.

"Uhh sort of I guess you could call it a date."

"Of course I'll go. What's playing?"

"Bondage fairy queens from planet nine."

"…."

+ That's it. + Misato thought to herself. Not only did she have an answer to the problem of Shinji's punishment but the same plan also contained a plan for her revenge for the stripping thing he pulled on her.

Deep in the bowels of NERV Gendo had a problem. The armor had a chink and this chink could cost them the entire project. It was something that couldn't be solved that easily. How the hell could one cure somebody that had an illness with no known cure. Sure he could send his son to a shrink. No he couldn't do that, that would be a security breech. He'd have to bring one in. This was bad. He sighed maybe it wasn't such a good thing that Ranma had been joined with his son. He leaned back in his new chair. He needed to do it to think better. His new chair helped a lot in his thinking and relaxing. The bolts gave and he ended up crashing onto his back staring up at the ceiling. 

"Hmm it could use a coat of paint."

Shinji was still sitting in the dark room waiting.

^ Damn how long is it going to take her to come tear me a new asshole so I can go 

home. ^

/ Well maybe you'd be better just break out and find her get it over with and then we can get something to eat. /

^ Get something to eat? You're not even in control, how can you be hungry? ^

/ I'm not hungry but I'll bet you are. /

^ We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for your stupid phobia. ^

/ Hey how could I know that those stupid Angels knew about cats. I thought they just came as stupidly deformed gross monsters. /

^ Well they can apparently shape themselves as as fuzzy cats. ^

The thought of which sent a collective shiver down both their spines. Shinji's physical, Ranma's mental.

Just then the door burst open and in strode Misato. She had her worst, most serious face on. She confidently strode over to him. He slumped his head over waiting for the belittlement that was to come. It didn't. He looked up trying to see some inkling in her eyes as to why she wasn't tearing him apart right now. It was then he saw it. Misato was standing in front of him in a tight black leather dominatrix outfit. In her right hand she held a cat o nine tails. Her left hand held a three cuff pair of handcuffs.

^ Where in the hell did she get those?! ^

/ Apparently you haven't been snooping through her closet. It was right next to her bunny costume. /

^ And when the hell does she have a bunny costume? ^

/ She is one sick puppy. /

^ No kidding I wonder what she wants. ^

/ Looks like we're going to play a little game. You want me to take over? /

^ Maybe later but for now I'll handle this. ^

"Shinji…" she began. "you know what you did was wrong. You disobeyed a direct order to engage the Angel, and by this inaction you put Tokyo 3 and maybe the fate of the entire planet in Jeopardy. You know you have to be punished." She lightly slapped the whip against her leg.

^ Man this is getting creepy. ^

/ I had no idea she was into bondage. I just thought she was going to dock you one week's pay and maybe chew you out. /

^ So did I. I thought sodomy was illegal. ^

/ You can just never tell these days. You want me to take over? /

^ No I'll do this. Hell if I let you take the whipping I'd be less of a man. Isn't that 

right? ^

/ You are a brave one Shinji. /

Without warning Shinji stood up and took off his plug suit and leaned over the bench. Misato was surprised. This was not at all in her plans, she just wanted to scare him a bit then tell him he wasn't going to get paid for the Angel battle because he didn't do anything. This might be better.

She raised the whip and gave a slow smack on his exposed butt. He did something she never expected, he moaned.

+ He's a masochist! When the hell did that happen? +

She decided that maybe she should try it a bit harder. She raised the whip and brought it down harder on his back. When it impacted Shinji's back arched in response and 9 red marks appeared on the part of the back where the tendrils had impacted. He moaned a little louder.

"Alright that's it! Stop moaning or I'll just whip you harder!"

"I'm sorry it just feels so good." He lied.

Misato not wanting to be outdone by her charge did a succession of rapid whips. It wasn't enough to break skin but his entire back was red and still he continued to moan aloud.

"That's it!" she screamed. "Be a pervert if I care." She did an abrupt turn on her heels and crashed out the door.

/ Does it hurt? /

^ Yes you can take over now. ^

/ You've got to be kidding me. You wanted to get whipped. /

^ I can't move. ^

/ And how can I help you? I can't move either. /

^ I hate you, you know that? ^

Quite a while later Shinji managed to get back to Misato's apartment, riding his bike was sheer torture. He needed to get even with her. Just how he was going to do that was yet to be determined. Right now he just wanted to get some sleep it had been a not altogether pleasant day. He opened the door to his room and there rummaging through his stuff was Azuka. She quickly spun around knowing she was caught. Instead of going on the defense she thought the best way to get her out of this mess was to go on the offensive.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing bursting in here like that! I could have been naked!" Azuka screamed.

"Well first of all it's my room so why should I knock? Secondly if you had been naked I would have passed out from shear horror. Now if you don't mind I'd like to get to sleep."

Shinji walked up to Azuka and tried to push her out of the way. His legs gave out. His forward momentum coupled with his legs backfiring caused him to topple forward taking Azuka with him. They both fell onto his bed his head buried deep into her cleavage. For no apparent reason his legs came back online and he jumped off of her and assumed a defensive position knowing what was going to follow. 

"You pervert!" she screamed. "I'll bet you've been waiting to feel me up like you do everybody else!"

"Why the hell would I want to feel up a flat cheasted tomboy like you, you ugly skank!"

/ Wrong answer. The correct answer was 'I'm sorry Azuka please forgive me.' Then get down on your knees and start kissing her ass. /

^ Not now Ranma. ^

Azuka reached behind her and pulled out her interdimensional hammer as expected. Just then two huge men dressed in black suits with rayban sunglasses burst through the door and grabbed one of Azuka's hands. 

"What in the hell is this about!" Azuka screamed.

"Mam you're under arrest for violating penal code 1124542 operation of an interdimensional hammer without a class 3 operators license. You'll have to come with us." One of the large men said. With that they dragged her out of the apartment. Shinji watched her go. He gave a little wave then flopped down onto his bed. He would tell Misato and they'd get her out of prison sometime. He yawned quite forcefully. But for now he was too tired to do anything. He fell asleep. 

The next day Ranma woke up first. He made his way to the kitchen to start breakfast. On the refrigerator he saw a note for either him, Shinji or Azuka. It basically said that they were to report to Central Dogma for more tests. It also said that they needed to pick up some beer.

"Well it looks like my day's shot. Best get something to eat then wake Shinji up."

After breakfast he went about the task of waking Shinji up. This was not as easily as going and kicking him awake like Akane used to do to him. He decided that the best way was to scream. He shut his eyes tight and hollered.

/ Hey Shinji wake up! /

It didn't seem to be working so he decided to try again.

/ HEY SHINJI WAKE UP! /

30 seconds of silence.

/ Hey look at that Rei's naked! /

^ Where? Where? ^

/ Man you're sick. /

^ You bastard I was having a great dream. ^

/ Yeah I felt that when I woke up. Give it up man she'll never go for your twig. /

^ At least I've got one you're a girl when you're in control. ^

/ Well…. /

^Well? ^

Ranma had never admitted defeat in his life so instead of admitting it now he did what he always did, change the subject.

/ We've got work to do. /

^ But I just got up! ^

/ We have to be at HQ in two hours. /

^ Two hours! Then why the hell did you wake me up! ^

/ Man I can't believe you're so dense. We still have to spring Azuka. /

^ Oh yeah. Her. ^

/ She doesn't look that bad. If it weren't for her 'I'll castrate you Shinji' attitude I'd think she would be pretty hot. /

^ I thought you were going after Misato? ^ 

/ Patience my boy. Patience. /

Shinji grabbed his NERV jacket and helmet off the hanger in the hall. He rushed out the door and down the stairs. If there was one thing that Shinji really enjoyed it was driving his bike. 

After he was gone for about 15 minutes the door to the spare fridge opened and out waddled Pen Pen. He yawned and stretched. Not finding anybody in the apartment he waddled to the couch and jumped on.

"Next on PTV Mrs. January. Just look at those flippers guy's and that beak…" droned the TV.

"Waaaaaarrrrk."

Bailing Azuka out of jail wasn't the easiest thing to do. As part of the deal to get her out she had to relinquish her hammer and swear never to use her dimensional storage area ever again to store weapons. This relieved both Shinji and Ranma. That was until they heard the rest of the deal. She couldn't use the dimensional hammerspace until she received her class 3 license which she promptly applied for. That of course was to be the least of their worries. Being in a jail cell all night had really pissed her off. Since the only person there that could have prevented this was Shinji and since he was currently here she decided that her long planned revenge would finally see light. She wound up and aimed a kick straight for his groin. He easily dodged jumped over her and touched his finger to the back of her head much the same way as Ranma did to Akane on their first sparing match.

"Tag you're it." He said then walked towards his bike.

/ You do know that you just made her angrier don't you? /

^ Well what else was I supposed to do let her sack me? ^

/ Might've saved you a lot of pain in the end when she does figure out something that you can't just jump over. /

^ And what sort of thing can't I just avoid? There's nothing that she can throw at me that I can't dodge or block. ^

/ You still have a lot to learn don't you. /

Shinji put his helmet on and mounted his hog. He reached behind him and handed the spare helmet to Azuka who was still fuming. She got on behind him and grabbed him around the midsection. Shinji squirmed uncomfortably but started the bike and started off for NERV headquarters. Azuka smiled a devilish smile. She had a plan to put Shinji in his place once and forever. There was just one snag however if it failed she would be left vulnerable. She could be hurt. Again.

+ No that's impossible I'm Azuka Soryu Langely, I'm the best. I will always be the best. I won't let this punk beat me. Shinji Ikari mark my words I'll win. At any cost. +

When they reached Central Dogma Misato was waiting for them.

"Glad you two finally decided to show up." She said.

"It was this baka's fault." Azuka retorted.

"Me?!…" Shinji started.

"Enough this test's going to take long enough as is get to decontamination 3 asap."

"But…"

"Go!" Misato shouted, then gave both of the young pilot's the 'glare' which told them that she meant business. 

Rei was waiting for them in the decontamination room. She was of course naked.

"Stop staring you pervert!" yelled Azuka.

Shinji snapped his eyes shut. But the image had been burned into his memory. His body couldn't help it.

Rei walked over to the shower and continued her decontamination.

"Azuka, Shinji you too."

"What!!! Me shower with that pervert!" yelled Azuka.

"Well unless you want the technicians to do it yes."

"I'll keep my eye's shut." Offered Shinji.

Azuka hmfd stripped naked and ran to the farthest corner of the shower and began scrubbing furiously. The faster she could get this over with the faster she would be away from Mr. Hormones. Shinji copied her but stood over by Rei. He didn't keep his promise to keep his eyes shut, she didn't seem to mind him looking at her. In fact she seemed to enjoy it. While he was at it he decided to steal a peek at Azuka.

^ So she really is a natural redhead. ^

Once they were secured in their dummy plugs the test commenced.

"Synch levels rising, approaching threshold, passed threshold. We are go for natural synch." Said Maya.

"Alright we are go for synch testing." Said Ritsuko.

For fifteen minutes the three computers Melchoir, Casper, and Balthazar collected their data relating to the test and the pilot's reaction to various stimuli.

All of a sudden every bell, whistle and alarm went off in unison.

"What's wrong?!" Shouted Misato.

"I don't know mam" said one of the technicians. 

Ritsuko was furiously typing away at several keyboards at once.

"There's some corrosion in pipe 6a. It's spreading rapidly." Ristuko shouted over the klaxons.

"Is it a threat?" Misato shouted back.

"Not yet. I'm sending in the automated repair crew."

She pressed several buttons then grabbed two joysticks that were beside her. Through the window in the command center one could see two doors open in the tank. Two metal spheres emerged from the holes in the tank and moved toward the patch of corrosion that had appeared on the wall.

"Prepping laser scrubbers." 

"Firing laser scrubbers."

The two robots suddenly emitted twin red beams that struck the wall. For several seconds the corrosion retreated, then without warning… 

"AT FIELD!" screamed Maya.

"It's infecting the dummy bodies!" yelled a technician.

"Eject the entry plugs now!" screamed Misato.

"Entry plugs ejected!" 

Rei's dummy body suddenly twitched and squirmed as though it was in pain. The left arm ripped free of it's restraints. Suddenly a giant fist smashed into the glass of the test room.

"Evacuate now!" yelled Misato. The technical staff all jumped up and rushed towards the exit. All of them except Ritsuko.

"What's the matter? Let's go!" Misato shouted as she grabbed Ritsuko and dashed towards the exit just as the Eva's hand came smashing though the glass. The torrent of water from the tank came spewing into the room washing away chairs and shorting out equipment. 

When they reached the emergency door the auto systems had already kicked in and the door was closing. Acting on a pure adrenaline rush Misato pulled her friend in front of her and jumped through the opening milliseconds before it slammed shut. The two came crashing down on the floor, Misato on top and Ritsuko in a compromising position. The jolt of impact shook Ritsuko out of her trance.

"Th… Thanks Misato."

"No problem."

"Could you kindof get off me now, we've got an angel to fight."

"I dunno I was kinda getting used to it here."

Misato slowly stood up, she winced at the pain. She didn't exactly make it out of the testing room unscathed, her leg had a fairly nasty cut on it. Ritsuko immediately rushed to her leg and examined the cut.

"How bad is it?" asked Misato.

"It's not too deep you'd better get to the infirmary and get it looked at. I'm afraid that it's going to scar."

"That's alright, I'll just be adding to my collection." She said patting her chest.

"Guard take the Major to the infirmary."

"No I've got to be in the command room. We've got to fight this Angel." Misato said.

Ritsuko turned to look at her friend. "I'm afraid the Eva's will be useless in fighting off this Angel, you rest let me handle it."

In his office Gendo was not amused. This little situation was not in any of the simulations nor was it in any of the dead sea scrolls upon which all of their plans were based. He pressed the purple button on the control panel in front of him. Instantly Unit 01 rocketed towards the surface. It had to be protected at all costs.

"Yui…"

The control room was a buzz with activity. The micro angel had already invaded most of the test room. Worst of all it seemed to adapt to any type of defense they had.

"Unknown invader in the central computer system!" yelled Aoba.

"What?!" Ritsuko yelled back.

"Something's hacking Balthazar!"

"Stop it!"

"I'm trying, it keeps evading all the traps and false doors I'm opening for it. Hack complete. Oh my god it's going after Melchoir!"

"Reverse decrypt the sequence keys, change the I/O port cipher sequence to 15 seconds."

"It worked, it's slowed down."

"For now." Ritsuko whispered under her breath.

"What is it?" asked Gendo.

"From what we can determine it's acting like a circuit. That's how it was able to hack Balthazar so fast." Ritsuko said.

"How much time do we have before it finished Melchoir and starts on Casper?"

"It should have Melcoir in about 15 minutes. Casper should take it another hour and a half."

"Very well then. As usual it must be stopped, fate of world, yadda, yadda, yadda, dismissed."

Since he had no clue on how to stop the Angel he would just lean back in his chair and let them figure out how to destroy the Angel. He fell backwards and once again studied his ceiling.

Meanwhile back in the control room Ritsuko was pulling her hair out.

"No that won't work, no not that either, no, no, no…" Technicians were streaming past her with ideas on how to kill the Angel. Just then Misato hobbled in on her crutches.

"Misato I thought I told you to get some rest and let me handle this."

"Melchoir has just been hacked." Shouted a technician from the upper control booth.

"Great job Ritchan, but this is war and in any war to win you have to be ruthless."

She leaned over and whispered her plan into Ritsuko's ear.

"Misato! That's inhumane! Yes it is an evil alien entity that is trying to destroy earth but what you're planning on doing that's just not right!"

"It's us or them. I choose us." Misato said with a determined stare.

"I will have no part in this."

"Don't worry. I'll save the day."

In the command room Misato reached into her pocket and pulled out a key and inserted it into a key slot in the wall. On the other side of the room Maya had a similar key inserted into a similar slot in the wall. Misato nodded and both of them simultaneously turned their keys. 

A small portion of the wall opened revealing a wall safe. She snapped open a red plastic case and pulled out the combination to the safe. The combination was 1,2,3,4,5,6. + Who the hell thought up that stupid combination? + she thought to herself.

As the safe door swung open her eyes glazed upon man's ultimate weapon to combat the angels. Yes it was a horribly destructive weapon, it had almost destroyed an entire generation. She wondered what type of Pandora's box she was going to open if it was used again. She put this thought to the back of her mind and walked over to the jery rigged dvd player that was attached to the main computer system and subsequently the three super computers Balthazar, Melcoir, and Casper. 

She slid the small shiny disk into the player but her finger paused as she was about to push the play button. 

Misato looked over towards the doorway and saw Ritsuko standing there.

She gently nodded towards Misato. With a renewed sense of confidence Misato closed her eyes and pressed the play button.

Every vidscreen and audio device roared to life as the ultimate weapon came online. Time stood still as everyone in the complex awaited the beginning of the end.

Then it came.

"I love you, you love me…"

The hideous purple dinosaur only known as Barney spewed his utter nonsensical drivel from every oozing pour of his cloth covered foam body.

People were dropping like flies, barf bags which were handed out prior to the start of the mission were quickly filled to overflowing. Even Misato was powerless in the face of this terrible act of destruction.

Once the opening theme song was done however went on auto fast forward piping 17 hours of Barney through the complex's computer systems. 

On the 3rd looping the red section indicating the infected areas of the computer system suddenly disappeared. A hand reached up from the floor and smacked at the stop button. It was over.

"Report." Said Misato in a weak voice.

Apparently nobody heard her.

"Report!" She said a little louder.

Aoba was the only one at his station, but just barely.

"It seems to have worked mam. The Angel killed itself."

"Good work."

"Can I go throw up now coach."

"I think you've earned it." Misato said weakly.

Above in the artificial lake three small tubes were floating on the surface. We join the conversation already in progress.

"But I'm naked!" yelled Azuka over the intercom system.

"Well would you rather wait for them to come get us? The life support systems may give out at any time." Said Shinji.

"I'm going for a swim." Said Rei.

"What are you doing? That pervert will look at you!" screamed Azuka.

"No I won't. As soon as I hit the water Ranma will take over in his girl body. We'll all be girls out there."

"I still don't like it."

Soon all three of them were splashing around in the lake. Ranma reached the edge of the lake first, then Rei, and since Azuka was the last to leave her entry plug she brought up the rear.

"Hey Azuka you're a natural red head." Commented Ranma.

"And apparently you're not." Azuka laughed.

Ranma looked down.

"The curse has a sick sense of humor."

Later on that night Shinji and Azuka were sitting around Misato's apartment. Since there was nothing on tv and nothing else to do Azuka was bored out of her mind.

"Hey Shinji you bored?" she asked.

"Not really."

"I am."

"What do you want to do then?"

Silence.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

"Sure lots of times."

/ You lying bastard. I was the one who kissed girls. /

^ Same person thing remember. I'm just getting Azuka pissed. ^

"You have not!" she yelled back.

"Have too."

"Then kiss me."

"What?"

"I want to see how good you are."

"I don't want to."

"You're chicken."

"Am not!"

^ Ranma I need some help. ^

/ Well I saw this in an anime once. Golden boy I think. Everytime I used this on Akane she almost creamed her jeans. /

^ Here goes nothing. ^

Shinji stood up and purposefully strode over to Azuka. He leaned in close. In one quick motion he grabbed the back of her head and perfectly executed the Kirohome corkscrew kiss. The entire kiss lasted about 30 seconds.

Azuka sat there stunned for about five seconds before she jumped up and ran to the bathroom. She had to wash out her mouth… and change her underwear. 

Chapter 13: You've Got That Lovin' Feeling

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and Azuka had woken up early. It was time to put her little plan into action. She quietly got dressed and snuck out of her room. She deftly maneuvered around an unconscious Misato and Pen Pen and their numerous beer cans towards Shinji's room. She slid the door open and quietly stepped inside. There were posters on the walls of half naked women in immensely too tiny bikini's, a few car posters, a poster picture of Rei, another of Misato, and yet another of Pen Pen, there was even a digitally altered picture with Shinji and Ranma standing back to back in really cool poses. As she scanned the room she didn't see her poster. 

"That little prick!" she whispered.

It didn't matter though. She would get her revenge on him and he'd be begging her to finish him off. She was getting flustered just thinking about it. She quickly scanned the floor to avoid hitting any objects that might give her presence away. She slinked around his well used exercise equipment and came to a stop just inches from his bed. 

Shinji was laying on his back, the covers were kicked off sometime last night. He was sleeping in a wife beater and boxer shorts. Azuka noticed that he was starting to show some nice ripples through his undershirt. Working out, obviously had some effect on him. 

She raised her hand above her head, then began its decent. Trajectory was good, speed was increasing, power was at 50% and rising. 

"WHAP!!"

Since nobody was definitely in control of the body at that moment both Shinji and Ranma felt Azuka's hand smack their collective genitals. Shinji quickly took over and was met with excruciating pain. He bit back a scream. 

"What the fuck do you want!" he almost yelled but his voice had mysteriously gone up a couple of octaves. 

"You're taking me on a date today" Azuka replied nonchalantly.

"Why the hell would I take a bitch like you on a date?!"

/ Well for one reason she's got you by the balls and if you don't do what she wants she's just going to squeeze harder./

"Did you think I was making a request? I said you're taking me on a date today." 

To emphasize her point she squeezed a little harder.

/ Your best move right now would be to say 'Yes dear.' Then bend over and take it like a man. That's just my opinion I could be wrong. /

^ Who asked you? ^

"From your lack of a response you're either talking to Ranma or stalling for time, so let me help with that decision." Azuka stated flatly as she gave Shinji's boys a little extra squeeze.

Shinji let out a little yelp.

"Yes Dear! I'll do whatever you say, just please stop!" He finally yelled.

"That's better. I'll just let you get dressed and we can go." She said as she turned and walked out the door giving a little skip as she went. Phase 1 went entirely as planned. That "How to get your man to do what you want for dummies" book was entirely worth the money she paid for it.

Back in Shinji's room, he and Ranma were having an interesting conversation.

^ What the hell am I going to do? Azuka asked me on a date! ^

/ Well she didn't exactly ask you. You've got to learn when a woman's got you by the balls like that there's nothing you can do but just grin and do whatever she wants. /

^ But why the hell would she want to go on a date with me? She hates my guts. ^

/ Well I wouldn't go that far. /

^ Oh yeah look at this. ^

Shinji reached into his dresser and pulled out a card. It was for his birthday from Azuka.

On the inside was written.

"Happy Birthday Shinji.

PS I hate your guts."

/ Well maybe she's changed her mind. /

^ No not her. She's up to something I just know it. ^

/ So this is a trap then is it? For what reason? /

^ She hates me. Is there any other reason to embarrass me? ^

/ I still think she's cute. / 

^ Sick. ^

/ Hey I thought the same thing about me n' Akane but we got it on eventually. /

^ Only after about a year and a half, then you only had 2 months before you died. ^

/ Well no relationship is perfect. /

"I guess you're right." Shinji said aloud as he finished buttoning his shirt. He put his wallet in his pants and went to the bathroom to finish prepping.

He walked out of his room and saw Azuka waiting at the kitchen table poking an unconscious Pen Pen. She was dressed in a light summer dress and her hair was done up into a loose pony tail. She almost looked… Shinji just couldn't find the words for it. Attractive? No that wasn't it. Or was it. 

Because he was so entranced with thinking about Azuka he wasn't thinking about what he was doing. He absentmindedly put Misato's 'special' foam on his face instead of his normal shaving cream, then he picked up the wrong tube and accidentally put some KY on his toothbrush. On his hair he put some of Pen Pen's preening gel. By the time he was finished his hair was slicked back, his face was perfectly shaved, and his teeth were squeaky clean with a friction coefficient of less than 0.001. A final dab of Misato's 'Stay Fresh' douche and he was ready to rock and roll.

He took one last look in the mirror, gave himself a little smile and two thumbs up and walked out of the bathroom. Azuka was still sitting at the table poking an unconscious Pen Pen. Misato was still passed out draped over the back of the couch. With all that noise they made he thought that she would have woken up. He turned to Azuka

"Well shall we." He said as he put on a mock tone of Chivalrism by bowing deeply and indicating the doorway with his other hand.

She rose slowly and gave him a butt check to the top of his fool head for his troubles. He stood up straight and followed her to the doorway. 

^ Why am I doing this again. ^

/ Look down. No not that far down. Up up bingo. Right there. /

^ But I'm just staring at her ass? ^

/ Do I have to spell it out for you? /

^ I never could spell, but I think I get your jist. ^

Wham!

"Pervert!" yelled Azuka.

"What the hell did you do that for?"

/ Well you were staring at her ass. /

^ Shut up Ranma you got me into this in the first place. ^

"Like you don't know why I did that. Hmph. Well come on then we've got lots to do today." Azuka said. She then grabbed his hand and towed him out the front door and down the stairs.

"So what are we going to do today?" asked Shinji.

"Well first we go shopping, then a movie, then lunch, then I thought lunch." Azuka said as she ticked off the plan on her fingers. 

And what a devious plan it was. She knew she couldn't beat him in a fight, on top of that he had Ranma in there which made him twice as smart and cunning as she was, the only thing she had on them was the fact that they were both men, and as such could easily fall victim to her feminine ways. She would string him along for a while then when he least expected it she would rip his heart from his chest and show it to him as he slowly died. She let out a little giggle as the image of Shinji kneeling on the ground clutching a gaping hole in his chest, his heart in her hand being slowly squeezed as he died painfully.

^ She's nuts. ^

/ You just realized that? /

There was one small flaw in her plan though, if she should by some fluke actually fall in love with him… She gave her head a little shake, she had promised herself that she would never allow herself to love anything again, after her parents, because love always brings pain.

They arrived at the mall and Azuka quickly went into a frenzy of zipping from store to store looking at clothes, shoes, jewelry and the assortment of girlish things. Shinji on the other hand stood in the center of the mall which was designed in a circular pattern so the men could keep an eye on their women while they were shopping, without having to walk with them.

One of the guys turned to Shinji.

"So you're here with your girlfriend eh?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Why not. I think she's pretty hot."

"Well each to his own, but if I were you I'd fuck that little bitch right here and now."

"Now just cut that out." Shinji replied.

"Come on hell if you won't do it I will." The guy said as he stepped out of the reserved area and started advancing on Azuka who was oblivious to the entire situation.

"The hell you are!" yelled Shinji. As he ran in front of the guy and landed a quick uppercut to his lower jaw, followed by 10 side kicks to his midsection, chest and legs.

This Azuka heard and she came storming over to where Shinji had just beaten up the guy.

"What the hell was that?!" she yelled exasperated.

"Defending your honor." Shinji grunted as he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the mall.

Their next stop was a movie. The only thing remotely good that was playing was Angel's Alive. It was about some kid that gets dragged to Tokyo, by his father who he hasn't seen in years and is forced to fight these aliens called Angels in this giant robot. They decided against it. The plot was just too stupid to be believable. They eventually settled on Titanic 2 a touching tale of two people who fell in love on the maiden voyage of the Titanic 2 before it was sabotaged by a gang of terrorists working for aliens and was blown up. 

Throughout the movie Azuka was hogging the popcorn. This seemed unfair to Shinji considering he was the one who had paid for that popcorn. He reached around her shoulders and snagged some popcorn, but by this time Azuka had misinterpreted his act of popcorn thievery as one of affection and had snuggled closer to him resting her head on his shoulder.

^ Crap I just wanted some popcorn, what the hell is she doing? ^

/ Look where your arm is. /

^ She thought. Oh man what the hell have I gotten myself into? ^

/ Enjoy the moment because it's not over yet. /

^ What do you mean it's not over yet? ^

/ You still have to take her out for lunch. /

^ LUNCH oh man I totally forgot about that. ^

The movie continued on for some time until at the end the hero is tragically killed defending earth and his love from the aliens. It was heartwarming as was indicated by Azuka's single tear. Shinji quickly dabbed it off with his finger brushing Azuka's cheek. She looked at him. He looked at her. Their eyes locked. She told him how much he loved her, she did the same. Then he convulsed and died. An aging Celine Dion came onscreen and started singing some song as the credits rolled. The entire theatre stood up and began walking towards the door.

The sunlight was fading as they walked out of the theatre.

"Man that was a long movie." Shinji said.

"Seven and a half hours" Azuka replied rotating her neck trying to get the kinks out of it.

"So what's next on the line up?"

Azuka looked at her watch.

"Supper I guess. I'm really hungry"

"Lead on."

As they walked Shinji's newly found 'water' sense kicked into high gear. Of course he'd inherited this sixth sense from Ranma and it never seemed to help him. An old woman on rollerblades skated passed him and quickly splashed him. The transformation took place and Shinji changed into Ranma. 

"How the hell does she do that?" Ranma said as she surveyed the damage.

She then turned to Azuka. 

"Well I guess you're date's ruined then."

Her plan was going too well for something this minor to ruin it. They'd go for supper and change Shinji back there. 

"We're going for supper." Said Azuka determined.

"But I'm not your date?" Ranma said a little confused.

"We'll change you guy's back at the restaurant."

Finally getting her point Ranma imitated Shinji by bowing deeply and holding his hand out to her.

"Lead on then mistress."

Unlike Shinji Azuka did not hit Ranma. However she did grab his hand and yank him in the direction of the restaurant district.

She stopped outside a quaint little café.

"This looks like a good restaurant." Azuka said as she dragged Ranma inside.

"Oro?"

As they stepped inside they were met at the door by a beautiful woman. Well she was around 40 years old but she definitely didn't show it. She was slightly taller than Ranma, and she was wearing a Chinese dress. But the two most striking features were her lavender purple hair that flowed almost all the way to her knees, and the bonbori that she had hanging on the wall behind her. He knew those all too well since when he was alive she treated him to many close up inspections of them.

"Aya, Welcome to the Cat Café, my name is Shampoo and I will be your server tonight."

Ranma noticeably froze up. Shampoo caught this and her brain went into overtime trying to remember where she'd seen this person before. She originally thought it could be Ranma in his girl form, but that was impossible since her Ranma had been long dead. She decided to ask.

"Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar." She said to Ranma.

"Uh me… no I don't think I've ever seen you before." Ranma nervously replied.

"Hmm well you look like my ex fiancée in his girl form." Shampoo said narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Ranma, believing him less by the second.

"I'm… uh her cousin!" / Yeah that's right. / Ranma said quickly stepping behind Azuka giving her a slight squeeze on the shoulders to try to get her to go along with his plan.

"Yeah this is my cousin Ranko Sourou Langley she just got into the city and I'm showing her around." Azuka said as she tactfully drove her heel into Ranma's foot to let him know that his choice of situations was well appreciated.

"Oh well then, my mistake. Let me show you to your seats." Shampoo said as she walked away.

Azuka leaned in close to Ranma.

"You owe me one."

"I know, just try to keep up the story. I can't let Shampoo know who I really am."

"Whatever."

Once they got to their seats Ranma noticed the person behind the grill, he obviously had eye surgery and had aged quite a bit, but it was still Mousse. Ranma gave a little smile. 

/ So that lame ass finally beat Shampoo did he? /

Shampoo laid the menus down on the table and was about to leave when Ranma saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at it. It turned out to be a young girl approximately 16 years old. Her hair was fire red and hung down to her waist, her body was just a knockout. Almost perfect in every way. Ranma suspected something but he had to know for sure. He tugged on Shampoo's dress.

"Excuse me miss."

Shampoo turned. "Yes? How may I help you?"

"Who is that young girl? I swear I've seen her before." Ranma said indicating the young red head.

"That's my daughter, Akari Saotome her father was killed on a trip to China before she was born. A pack of wild wolves they say."

"I've heard stories about an old woman that ran this place, white hair carries a staff, what ever happened to her?"

"She died shortly after my fiancée." Shampoo said abruptly. "Now if you will excuse me I have work to do." She said as she walked away.

Ranma leaned back in his chair and put his hand on his head.

"Man just how many kids do I have?" he said.

"For a dead guy you're pretty frisky." Azuka quipped.

"You have no idea. Hell I thought being dead I would get to relax, but no wherever I go the circus seems to follow me. It's almost like my life is one big story and everybody is watching."

After they ordered and had eaten Mousse came over to talk to them, to get feedback like every good chef should.

"And how were your meals?" he asked.

"Great!" Azuka offered.

"Pretty good." Ranma said. He wouldn't say that he'd eaten better when Cologne was still alive.

Mousse looked at Azuka. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

She looked at him. "No I've never met you before."

He looked closer. "You're Azuka Sourou aren't you?"

"Yeah how do you know me?" Azuka said.

"Well I don't know you personally but I used to know your parents."

Azuka tensed up.

"It's really a shame that they died like that."

This peaked Ranma's intrest.

"How did they die?" he asked.

"They hung themselves, and I walked in and found them." Azuka said trying to keep up her mask but her resolve was failing.

"I'm sorry to have dredged up such a horrible thing." Said Mousse now realizing his blunder. "It's been nice seeing you." Quickly changing the subject. "Could I get you anything else?"

"Some hot tea to go." Ranma said.

Mousse shuffled off to fulfil the request.

/ You're probably going to want a word with Azuka after this I'd imagine. /

^ Yeah she's got some explaining to do. ^

Mousse came back with the tea and the cheque.

Azuka gave Ranma an evil glance that more or less told him that he should pay the bill.

He paid it and left a generous tip. It was the only type of child support he was ever going to pay. He just wished that he was there for the conception.

They left the restaurant and immediately ducked into a nearby ally where Ranma dumped the hot tea on his head. Shinji shook his head lightly to get rid of some of the extra water, then he looked at Azuka.

"So the truth finally comes out eh?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Don't. Just don't try to lie your way out of this one. I know now why you act like a bitch all the time."

"I am not a bitch!" Azuka screamed defensively.

"Yes you are and you know why too. It's because your parents died when you were so young. You thought that if anybody got close to you and you started to love that person they would leave you and you would get hurt again." He leaned up against the wall. "Am I right?"

Azuka was almost in tears. "How the hell would you know anything about it? How the hell could you know?" she sobbed.

"You just don't get it do you? My mother died when I was young too and shortly after that my father abandoned me, you're not the only one who's had a shitty time of it. Turning off your emotions doesn't help any so get used to it!" 

That did it. Azuka broke down into tears. 

/ Man look what you've done now. /

^ Me you were feeding me all that crap to say to her! ^

/ But you said it. Oh just great she's on her knees now. Better turn on the sympathy and calm her down. /

Shinji let out a little sigh and walked over to Azuka. He helped her to her feet. She was still sobbing. He put her head on his shoulder, and started to pat her back.

"Shh shh it's all right." He said.

They walked home in silence. 

When they reached the apartment they both entered in silence. A quick scan of the apartment didn't reveal anybody else was home. Azuka turned to Shinji.

"Shinji…" she said "I'm sorry."

He went to pull her into another hug but instead she pulled him into a deep kiss. He could feel her tongue swabbing his tonsils, he reciprocated and instigated. Suddenly the lights came on and 15 people jumped out of nowhere.

"Surprise!" they all yelled.

Shinji and Azuka broke their kiss and looked horrified at the crowd. There was Misato, Pen Pen, Maya, Aoba, Rei, Touji, and several others. There was dead silence after they saw what Shinji and Azuka had been doing.

Misato who was already tanked started yelling in the back. "Kiss her again. Ride her all night long. Woo hooo." Thud.

Not knowing what to do Shinji grabbed Azuka into his arms jumped over the now unconscious Misato and did the first thing he thought of. He jumped out the window and started running as fast as he could. Azuka reached up for another kiss which Shinji happily gave her. Unfortunately since he was kissing Azuka he failed to notice where he was blindly running to.

The plume of water could be seen for blocks. The slap could be heard for miles.

"YOU PERVERT!" Azuka screamed as she stormed off soaking wet towards the apartment.

Ranma just sat there in one of the numerous craters caused by the battles which had filled with water. He leaned back and started floating on the water's surface

/ Some night huh? /

^ You can say that again. ^

/ I wonder what they're going to say when we get back to the apartment they all saw you kissing Azuka. /

^ I don't know and I don't care. ^

/ You actually like her now don't you? /

^ I do not! ^

/ You do too. I can read your mind like a book. /

^ Well what if I do? Where do I go from here? ^

/ Well for one thing a proper date would be in order. /

Ranma let out a scream.

^ What the hell was that for? ^

/ There's a carp swimming around in my pants! /

^ You're hopeless. ^

Back at the apartment everybody had left except Misato and Pen Pen. Misato was passed out draped over the couch the wrong way with her face pointing towards the ceiling. Pen Pen had passed out face first into the sink. Everything was quiet. Everything was calm.

You just know something's going to happen don't you?

Future Episodes and my other fanfics are posted at 

[http://members.xoom.com/nealharris][1]

   [1]: http://members.xoom.com/nealharris



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